


Like A Hammer To A Hand Grenade

by commoncomitatus



Category: Defiance (TV)
Genre: Consensual Violence, F/F, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 07:21:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 57,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4951573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncomitatus/pseuds/commoncomitatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-“Broken Bough”. In which Berlin is a borderline sadist, Irisa is a not-so-borderline masochist, and Amanda just wants everyone to get along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hibernate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hibernate/gifts).



*

It’s late, and Berlin is drunk.

Neither of those things are particularly noteworthy; lately it seems that she’s drunk more often than not, and at night almost without fail. The town is so damn quiet, as close to peaceful as it ever gets, and it sets her teeth on edge. You’d think it’d be more raucous tonight, the inevitable chaos that comes with finally having power again, but no. Apparently people would still sooner sleep in their beds than make the most of a too-rare win. _Typical_ , she thinks, and hates it.

Once upon a time peace and quiet might’ve been a luxury, maybe even something she’d look for, but now it’s the last thing in the world she wants. It gives her too much time to think, and with so much shtako in her head that’s definitely not a good thing. Too much to think about and too few distractions to help keep it all inside where it belongs. Better to just drown it all out, the peace and the quiet and the thinking and all the rest, just wash it all down the drain and start again in the morning.

She’s at her desk in the lawkeeper’s office, hunched over a bottle of something so old and sour it must have been bottled before the Pale Wars. Crappy bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, probably more intended for stripping paint than drinking, but it gets the job done as well as Amanda’s fancy top-shelf shtako. She’s not really working, but she’s here and she’s available, and she supposes that’s something. She could be anywhere in the world right now — at home or at the NeedWant, in her bed or someone else’s, the possibilities are endless — but here she is like it’s the most normal thing in the world, like anyone in town is conscious enough to care. Apparently, she’s just that dedicated to her job. Not so long ago that might’ve been a criticism; now it’s about the only good thing she has going for her.

Besides, it’s not like this is the first (or even the fifth) time she came to work wasted (this month alone). At this point, she does it drunk almost as often as she does it sober. But hey, at least she’s doing it, right? More than she can say for half the deserters who up and left the second New York went down.

Not that it’s about them, really. If she’s honest, it’s as much for herself as much as anyone else. Maybe there’s some stupidly sentimental part of her that wants to prove that she deserves this, prove that Amanda wasn’t the gullible fool everyone said she was for hiring the evil E-Rep propagandist to protect the town (as if she had a choice, right?). Doesn’t matter that the place is all but deserted right now, or that everyone is safe and sound in their beds (or someone else’s, or the NeedWant, or wherever-the-hell-else people go in this shtakhole). Doesn’t matter that her head is killing her or that she can hardly see straight. The point is, she’s _here_. Might not mean much now, with the whole town dead to the world and her so deep in her cups she can’t see the other side, but when morning breaks over the inevitable hangover… well, maybe it’ll be worth something then.

Not now, though. She’s here, sure, but apparently she’s all but useless because when all that peace and quiet gets punctuated by a knock at the door she damn near has a heart attack.

No-one would blame her for ignoring it. Hell, probably not many who’d blame her for hiding under the desk and pretending no-one’s home; hell, after the last few days, that’s probably the smarter option. She doesn’t, though. Wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t willing to get her hands dirty, and besides it’s a distraction. That’s why she’s drinking in the first place, isn’t it? So, yeah, up she gets and drags herself to the door because she’ll be damned if she lets an almost-heart-attack keep her down.

She makes a show of putting on her best Pissed Off Lawkeeper face when she gets there, snarling curses and not caring that they’re slurred beyond recognition; she doesn’t even bother trying to hide the booze on her breath. Let them take her for what she is, she thinks, and yanks the door open.

“This better be important.” It comes out more harshly than she intends, but she’s not about to take it back now. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

The answer is wry, and it makes the breath catch in her throat. “You want me to round up or down?”

Berlin rears back, raises a fist almost without thinking. “ _You_.”

It’s the last thing in the world she needs right now. Middle of the night and well on her way to a world-ending hangover, isn’t it just chupping typical that the idiot on her doorstep would be the one person in the whole damn world she’d sooner see dead than alive?

 _Irisa_ , standing there as bold as anything, like this is her office and not Berlin’s. “Yes,” she says, and Berlin has to dig her nails into her palms to keep from beating her to a bloody pulp.

It’s tempting, though. Really tempting. Just shove that oversized Irathient head through the nearest wall over and over and over until one or the other crumbles to dust, then leave whatever’s left on the doorstep for Daddy Nolan to find in the morning. It’s so damn tempting, and all the more so when she lets herself imagine the look on his smug cowboy’s face; he’ll be nursing a hangover of his own, Berlin suspects, and what better way of saying _‘good morning’_ than watching him pick up the scattered bits of his precious little daughter?

They’d both deserve it, frankly, but then maybe Berlin isn’t quite as drunk as she thinks (or as drunk as she should be, come to that), because apparently she’s got just enough self-control left in her to keep her hands at her sides where they should be instead of smashing through Irisa’s face like they want to be.

(For the time being, anyway.)

“What do you want?” she demands, and doesn’t care that Irisa can probably hear exactly how drunk she is.

If she does notice the slurring or the unsteadiness (which, realistically, she has to) Irisa doesn’t comment. She’s hunched forwards, hugging herself, and apparently way more interested in the floor than Berlin; her hair’s covering most of her face, but Berlin can still make out those creepy alien eyes, big wide irises and ink-dark pupils. She’s breathing hard too, and for about half a second, Berlin wonders if she’s been shot or if someone took a swing at her out in the street (someone other than Berlin this time). It’s all too easy to assume from the look of her that she’s come here in search of help, though of course Berlin knows better than to indulge such thinking. In the first, she wouldn’t be that damn lucky, and in the second not even a half-dead murderer could possibly mistake the lawkeeper’s office for Doc Yewll’s. Whatever’s happened, she’s here on purpose, by choice; she’s here specifically for Berlin, and that makes her blood run hot again, white-hot hatred overriding whatever tiny part of her might have almost cared.

She’s about a breath away from taking the little bitch by the shoulders and shaking an explanation out of her when Irisa beats her to it, raising her head real slow and staring her straight in the eye.

“Do it,” she says.

Berlin blinks, too confused to even try and save face. “Excuse me?”

Irisa takes a step forward, spreads her arms. “You heard me.”

She did, yes, but hearing isn’t the same as understanding. Her head’s starting to pound, not from the liquor this time but in that throbbing migraine way that always seems to crop up at the sight of Irisa’s face, and she’s in no mood for games.

“What the chup are you talking about?”

Irisa doesn’t answer. Well, not with words, anyway. She keeps moving, though, powering past the threshold of the door and beyond until she’s right up in Berlin’s face, like she doesn’t realise how stupid (or how dangerous) that is. Berlin backs away, not because she’s afraid of the murdering little Irathient but because her self-control is hanging by less than a thread and if Irisa keeps throwing herself in front of her like this it’ll snap for sure. Everyone has a breaking point, and Berlin’s was a good four drinks ago; surely even Nolan wouldn’t begrudge her a moment or two of mindless violence if he knew that his precious daughter was pushing her buttons on purpose.

She doesn’t gets very far, though. Whatever idiocy Irisa has in mind, she wants Berlin right there, and she doesn’t let her get away; she has her by the arms before she’s gone even a couple of steps, holding her close and digging her fingers in deep.

“ _Do it_ ,” she says again, and this time Berlin does understand.

Her temper flares, bolstered by the booze. She can feel the strength twitching in her arms, turning her muscles to steel, all the pent-up hate that she’s not allowed to vent in other ways, and she shoves Irisa in the chest, hard enough that she grunts. It’s a threat, or maybe a bit of a promise; hard to tell at this point, and the brutality is doing a better job of blinding her than the liquor ever did.

“Back off,” she grits out. It’s the last warning either of them is going to get, and they both know it.

Small surprise, then, that Irisa ignores her. She doesn’t even stumble, just catches her balance like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and comes right at her again. No doubt about it this time; she’s after the same thing Berlin is. There’s heat behind her eyes, a kind of passion that might be unnerving to someone else, someone who didn’t hate her with ever fibre of their being. There’s something else in there too, something that latches on to a place in Berlin’s chest, a seething violent place; she recognises it in herself, that same strange _something_ , but she can’t find a word for it, can’t make it make sense. Nameless, intangible, but it strikes a blow.

So does she.

The _‘crack’_ echoes in the small office space, sickening and satisfying at the same time. Irisa’s head snaps back with a sharpness that thrums in both their veins, and Berlin’s vision floods with red.

She lashes out again, harder, and lets the sound of bone on flesh bring her back to herself. Not completely, oh no, but enough to remind her that this is dangerous. Enough, albeit just barely, to keep her from pulling back for a third.

She’s aching with how desperately she wants it, another swing and another _crack_ and a spray of blood to paint the walls, but that’s a slippery slope, and it’s not one she wants to fall down again. She reels away, bracing her left hand against the wall and shaking out the soon-to-be bruises on her right. Irisa is panting behind her, breathless but frustratingly quiet, and the ragged rhythm of her gasps makes Berlin want to turn back and lay into her again and again, to keep going until she forces a chupping reaction.

She doesn’t, though, and it’s a very long moment before she trusts herself to look at her. Neither of them have spoken (what the hell would they say, anyway?) and though she expects to find that kicked-puppy innocence plastered all over Irisa’s lying Irathient face, the sad look that turns everyone else to putty in her hands, instead she finds something else. Hard to describe, harder still too look at, it’s a strange kind of satisfaction that turns Berlin’s stomach and tightens like a fist around her throat.

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” she blurts out, before she can stop herself.

Irisa rubs her jaw. She’s smiling, sort of, but her eyes are wet, like she can’t quite figure out whether she wants to laugh or cry. Berlin really hopes she doesn’t do either. She’s too tired and too damn drunk to deal with shtako like that.

“You were right,” Irisa says after a long moment.

Berlin doesn’t ask what she’s talking about this time. She doesn’t care, and in any case it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, she knows she’s right; she always is. Besides, she can’t hear her voice, can’t even look at her without thinking of Tommy, and if she heeds that part of her for more than a moment Irisa will be choking on a whole lot more than breath.

“You’ve come to the wrong place if you want sympathy,” she says instead; she’s breathing in rhythm with her heartbeat, too fast and too hard.

“I don’t.”

She sounds sincere, and strangely self-assured for someone who just took a couple of knocks to the head from a woman she knows would rip it from her shoulders given half the chance. It sets Berlin’s nerves on fire, and makes her turn back. Irisa’s eyes are creepy at the best of time, but here in the half-light they practically glow, lit up with intensity and heat; she looks damn near desperate, like she need this confrontation in the same way Berlin does. It makes her ache a little, a heavy shudder in her chest, and it is so damn difficult to keep from thinking about Tommy when she’s staring down at the woman who killed him, the Irathient bitch who had him first.

“Then what?” she snaps, hating how broken she sounds, how weak next to this murdering Irathient spitting blood without so much as a thought. “What the hell could you possibly want from me?”

It’s a stupid question, and of course she already knows the answer: she wants _this_ , the knocks to the head and the blood in her mouth, all the things Berlin’s been trying to drown in booze and late nights in the lawkeeper’s office, the terrible things that fill her fantasies. Violence and hate, and maybe she should enjoy this, take pride in knowing that at least the little monster knows she deserves it, but she doesn’t.

Irisa doesn’t give her the satisfaction of putting it into words. She just stares at her with those burning alien eyes and waits for Berlin to break first, waits for her to give in to what they both know she wants more. There’s already a bruise forming on the side of her face, a blooming dark swell where Berlin punched her the second time, and she touches the spot with shaking fingers. Berlin doesn’t need the gesture to know what she’s saying, but there’s something almost obscene in the way she does it, inviting and offering at the same time; in spite of herself, the sight of it makes her mouth fall open.

Irisa still doesn’t say anything. Of course she doesn’t. She just stands there waiting, like this is a debate, like it’s a chupping conversation, and Berlin hates how weak she is, hates the fact that she has to break the silence herself or risk letting Irisa break her with it.

“You’re crazy,” she mutters.

Irisa shrugs, but doesn’t deny it. She’s still not talking, still just standing there staring at Berlin like she’s waiting for a damn land coach, like she really expects her to start throwing punches again just because they both want it. Berlin might hate her, might be blind with rage, might be desperate beyond words, but she’s not about to play into Irisa’s hands, and she’s sure as shtak not about to give the little murderer what _she_ wants. She’d sooner punish herself a dozen times over than reward Irisa even just once.

She turns around, makes a point of showing her back, and crosses back to the desk in about three wobbly strides.

“Go home,” she says, bracing on the desk with both hands; she’s suddenly exhausted, worn out beyond measure by the strain of staying in control, and she doesn’t give a damn that Irisa can see it all. “Stop wasting my time.”

Irisa doesn’t move. Berlin didn’t really expect her to, but the stubbornness still annoys the hell out of her. She tries to ignore her, sits down and squints at the paperwork piled up on the desk. It’s days-old stuff, petty crimes and other dot-the-‘i’s bullshtak, boring and mostly pointless and she’d all but forgotten it was there. She certainly hadn’t planned on trawling through it tonight, drunk and exhausted as she is, but it gives her something to do, something to occupy her hands and her head and hide the fact that they’re both trembling. It’s also an easy way of pretending she doesn’t see Irisa standing there, with her wide damp eyes and her heat and her intensity, waiting and waiting and—

“Berlin.”

“I said ‘go home’.” The papers shake in her hands, but she doesn’t look up. “We’re done talking.”

She’s so occupied with pointedly not looking at Irisa that she doesn’t notice when the little bitch starts to move. She’d assumed, naturally if a little stupidly, that any kind of motion would have to make some kind of noise; the floor’s far from soft and Irisa’s boots are heavy, and in any case Berlin has been trained for years to hone in on sounds and corner-of-the-eye flutters. She should have seen it coming even if she wasn’t looking, but apparently Irisa’s alien weirdness goes further than just looking creepy because suddenly the little murderer is right next to her, hair tickling Berlin’s neck and breath rasping against her ear.

It’s not anger, that intensity; it’s more like ferocity, feral and alien and scalding hot. She leans right in, all the way, until there’s nothing between them, no space for breath, until their faces are so close that even the air has to rush out to find its own space.

“I didn’t come here to talk.”

She’s got the liquor bottle in her hand, held above both their heads like a challenge. Berlin has no idea when she grabbed it; even though she’s right in front of her, she’s still pretty sure she hasn’t seen her move at all. If it was anyone else she might even be impressed; as it is she’s just really chupping angry, and when Irisa throws her head back and takes a long swallow right from the neck, it takes everything Berlin has to keep from ripping it out of her hands and throwing the damn thing against the wall.

“Put that down.”

It’s a command, an order from the lawkeeper; there’s promise of more violence if she doesn’t comply, under the convenient guise of ‘resisting authority’, and of course it makes Irisa grin like an idiot. That’s what she wants, after all, and doesn’t Berlin just hate that she wants it too? Irisa’s mouth is obscenely wet, liquor glistening on her lips, and Berlin bites her own, keeps her eyes on the neck of the bottle, on the way Irisa’s knuckles pale as she lifts it again.

“I said—”

“I heard you.”

Another long loud swallow, then another, and Berlin hates herself because she knows that Irisa’s goading her, knows that she’s playing right into the little murderer’s blood-soaked hands. But, then, that's the problem, isn't it? She knows it, sure, but dammit that’s _her_ bottle, _her_ booze, and she will gladly take whatever punishment Amanda and Nolan want to dish out if it means making that point clear. She wants to restrain herself, to be the bigger man if only for her own gratification, to hold off on all the things she wants to do because she knows that Irisa wants them too. She wants to be a good person, a good lawkeeper; she wants to be a woman that could make Amanda proud, that could make the idiots in this town take back the shtak they spin about her. She wants to be good all over, but she’s not. Never has been.

Besides, her baser instincts are in control right now, and they’ve always been stronger than her pride.

She yanks the bottle back, knocks back the rest of the liquor in a single gulp — not that impressive, really, given that there’s hardly anything left in there — and lets it fall to the floor. It lands hard but doesn’t smash, just clinks and starts to roll. Berlin doesn’t so much as glance at it, and neither does Irisa; their eyes are locked on each other.

Irisa’s lips are pulled back, a feral sneer to go with the rest of her. “Do it.”

This time, Berlin doesn’t hesitate.

She tells herself it’s the liquor swimming in her, the impaired judgement and reflexes and the itch to start good fights with bad people, the way her sense of right and wrong always blurs when she’s had a few. She tells herself it’s just the way she is, vicious and brutal and full of blood, and tries a little too hard to ignore little voice that says she’s playing into Irisa’s hands. Who cares, she thinks; she just want to hit something.

Irisa is an easy target, and not just because she’s begging for it. She’s an easy target because she’s the kind who gives back, who can dish out what she gets; on another day in another place she might have left Berlin bleeding herself. She’s the perfect kind of target, the kind who could never be mistaken for someone weak or helpless, but they both know it’s not just about that.

Fact is, easy target or not, Irisa is the one Berlin wants. She’s been dreaming about a beatdown like this ever since the bitch got back into town, ever since she saw her stupid murdering face and washed seven months’ worth of grief down the damn drain. That ache, that need for vengeance and vindication and violence… it’s not going away any time soon. How could it when every time she looks at Irisa’s face she sees everything she’s lost?

It gets real violent real fast, but it’s not satisfying like she thought it would be. It’s bloody and brutal, and in another time and place it might taste really sweet, but this is here and now and it taste so bitter she damn near chokes. It hits her right in the gut, the churned-up place where the liquor drowns her feelings; it’s all she can do not to scream herself when Irisa cries out, all she can do not to feel the impact vibrate through her whole body when that oversized Irathient head hits the table, and it’s all she can do not to cringe and cower when she looks down at herself from a twisted dissociated distance and realises she can’t stop.

The papers go flying, cascading to the floor in a mess that’ll probably take half the morning to clean up, but she doesn’t care. She _can’t_ care. If she does, it’s all over, and not just for her and Irisa.

Berlin has always been a violent person. It’s not something she’s proud of, but it is what it is and she’s never really been in a position to change it. Honestly, she’s not sure she would even if she could; it’s hard, after all, to grow up in a violent world without getting a little of it inside you too. It’s kept her alive more than once, kept her breathing before she was old enough to make the choice for herself, and she’s long since trampled down the parts of her that might have once felt a need to apologise for that. It’s served her too well, been a friend when no-one else was, and Berlin doesn’t turn her back on the friends who have hers.

Irisa’s violent too, she knows. That, at least, they have in common, though she knows it’s not exactly the same; Irisa’s not human, and when she lets herself lose control it’s alien and savage. It’s just like the rest of her people, just like all the chupping Votans, and Berlin had plenty of reasons to hate her for that alone long before any of this gave her a better one. Irisa responds to violence like an alien, no flinching or retaliating or anything Berlin would expect if she was human; she’s begging for it, meeting each punch with a smile and a cock of her hips, and it’s more than Berlin can do to hold herself at bay. She doesn’t want to, and why the hell should she when Irisa’s looking at her like the blood on her face is a gift from her precious Irzu? Why the hell should she when that murdering alien bitch is the reason she’s choking on all this hate in the first place?

The place is a mess by the time she’s done. Papers everywhere, thrown from the desk in a fit of rage and trampled; there’s a giant boot-print right in the middle of an arrest report, blood spattering the rest, and Berlin is at least ninety-two per cent sure that Amanda is going to shove her own boot right up Berlin’s ass when she finds out about it. There’s shattered glass everywhere, crunching noisily underfoot; she must have picked up the bottle at some point and smashed it against… well _something_ , because the damn thing is nowhere to be seen now and there’s enough broken glass to make one hell of a mosaic. It doesn’t take a genius to put those clues together, and she doesn’t need to remember what happened to figure it out.

Irisa’s face is a mess too, a wasteland of blood and bruises, and Berlin takes more pleasure than she’d ever admit in smearing some of that Irathient blood across the wall. She’s got Irisa pinned face-first, and the blood-soaked spittle gathered at the corner of her mouth makes a real nice monument to all of this. She presses with her elbow, jamming it into Irisa’s neck hard enough that she knows it hurts, twisting her arm behind her back with her free hand until Irisa groans and starts to struggle.

Berlin’s the one in pain, though. She’s the one with tears pouring down her face, her body wrenching in a rictus of animal cries. Irisa might be beaten and bloodied, might be pinned to a wall streaked with her blood, might be helpless and writhing and groaning, but her eyes are a whole lot drier now than they were when she came in. Honestly, they’re probably drier now than they’ve been in days. She got what she wanted, every little bit, and Berlin wants to scream because even though she got what she wanted too, even though this is everything she thought she needed, still somehow she’s hurting and unfulfilled while Irisa lines the wall with her blood and relishes every second.

She slams her into the wall one last time, more for effect than anything else, then hauls her away and shoves her towards the door. Irisa stumbles, but she doesn’t fall, and Berlin indulges the disappointment with a swift kick to the back of her knees, a cheap shot that catches her off-guard and knocks her down. _Good,_ Berlin thinks, unjustly cruel. No way in hell is she letting that monster out of here with her dignity.

Irisa braces with a hand on the floor, breathing hard. Her head is bowed low, hair framing her face and casting shadows over the bruises and the blood, the mess Berlin made. Crouched there like that she looks almost like a ghost, like some broken-down spectre of something horrible, something tortured and twisted, like too many of the Votans Berlin’s spent too many years trying to forget. The thought lands hard; she shuts her eyes tight and turns away.

“I’m sorry.”

The words come out of nowhere, cut through the air like a charge-blade, and for about half a second, Berlin is entirely convinced that she’s the one who said it.

Crazy, right? There’s nothing to regret here, and even if there was she wouldn’t. Still, though, there it is; she’s so damn sure that her mouth has betrayed her heart, that her humanity’s shrouding her passion and showing itself off for all to see. It feels so wrong, all of this, and maybe there’s a part of her that really is sorry, that wishes she had better self-control, because it surprises her more than she’d ever admit when she catches herself and realises that, no, it wasn’t her after all.

It’s Irisa, definitely, and Berlin chides herself for not realising that sooner. The words are barely audible, choked by blood and pain, but they’re definitely hers, that half-cocked half-Irath accent cutting through the air and making the anger surge up again, swelling like bruises. Berlin tries to swallow it, but it won’t go down, a wash of red to drown the corners of herself that can’t help feeling ashamed of what she’s done.

“Get out,” she orders, because the thought of hearing those words again freezes her blood.

Irisa doesn’t move. Of course she doesn’t. She’s probably waiting for more, crazy-ass masochist that she is, and if Berlin was just a little more drunk and a little less miserable she’d probably give in and give it to her. Fingers twitching at her sides, bruise-blackened knuckles turning white, but she doesn’t let them rule her head. Not again. She bends over instead, drags Irisa back up to her feet, and gives her another rough shove towards the door. Irisa lets Berlin push her around, takes it without resisting, but she still doesn’t leave.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, and then again, and again and again…

Berlin can’t stand it. The words, the pain that sounds so damn _satisfied_ , any of it. She can’t stand the sound of her voice, the sight of her, the bruises swelling under her creepy alien eyes, the blood smeared across her mouth, her cheek, the walls, the papers and the glass shattered and scattered all over the place. She can’t stand the liquor swirling inside of her, the warmth spreading through her chest, the way it fuels the violence and the hate and makes it all taste bitter. She can’t stand anything. This room, this town, the whole chupping world and all the hurt that comes with it. She can’t stand it.

“Get out.” Her voice is a rasp, sandpaper-rough. “Before I put you down.”

Irisa looks up, studies her for a long moment. Her face is a mess of blood and bruises, but her eyes pierce through the swelling, as clear and bright as anything Berlin has ever seen and full of more feeling than she’s ever known in her life.

“I’m—”

“ _Get out_!”

It’s not an order this time, not a command or a threat or a warning or any of the shtako she’s been throwing around all night. This time, it’s a scream.

Irisa reels for a moment, mouth half-open and blood sticking to her teeth, like she can’t believe the power behind two little words. It’s only a moment, though, and then her eyes are wet again, darker than they should be but still so damn _bright_ , and Berlin wants to drown in them, wants to dive in and lose herself, wants to know what it’s like on the other side of that dark-bright pain, wants to know how Irisa really feels, what _‘sorry’_ really means in Irathient. She wants to drown in the blood and the bruises, too, wants to swallow down the brutality, the white-knuckled fists that still tremble at her sides and at Irisa’s as well. She wants to drown, dive deep and never come back up again, never, never, _never_ …

…and Irisa recognises that.

She doesn’t just see it, not like Amanda did those long nights in the NeedWant after Tommy died, not like certain other people think they do when they pass her on the street and wonder why she’s holding her gun so tight. She doesn’t just look at Berlin and pretend she knows what she’s going through because she knew Tommy and she knew what they were to each other; she doesn’t just sweep the rest of it under the carpet like it’s dead and gone and buried, like it could ever really be. No. Not Irisa. She _recognises_ it, truly, knows it like it’s in her as well, like Berlin’s screams are lodged in her own throat too, like even this hurt doesn’t really belong to Berlin at all.

That’s just typical, isn’t it? Even this, a scream and a choke and a world of hate, isn’t truly _hers_. It’s Irisa’s too, if the look on her face is anything to go by, just like Tommy was, just like everything always is. _Irisa’s_ , and Berlin wants to hate her for that, wants to lash out again and smear what’s left of her face with more blood and bruises and brutality, more of everything that makes her look like someone else, like the alien primitive she truly is. She wants to, oh yes, but she can’t. She _can’t_ , because apparently that awful recognition burns both ways, because maybe she can see more of herself in Irisa than she wants to as well, because maybe it’s not just an Irathient murderer she sees behind those eyes, but a violent, drunken lawkeeper.

She screams again, lashes out, but it’s not a bare-knuckled blow this time, no blood or bruises or anything like that, just raw broken pain, a howl like the shattering of an empty bottle, like the sounds Tommy makes when he dies in her dreams every chupping night. She screams, and she slams her open palms into Irisa’s chest, and she tries to say _‘get out’_ or _‘go home’_ or any one of a thousand things, but none of them come out. No words at all, not even one, just an endless strangled scream that breaks them both.

She falls, slamming to her knees like the whole damn world is crashing down on top of her, and of course Irisa’s there, and of course she catches her, and of course she holds her close and tight. Of course she does, of course she does; she always does the worst possible thing. She’s all strong arms and steady hands, Irisa, and Berlin damn near chokes on the smell of her, of sweat and blood and sorrow; it clings to her skin, her clothes, to all the parts of her she doesn’t want Irisa to touch; wet and warm and alien, it stains her cheeks and her hair, gets everywhere and leaves a mark, a memory of how completely she’s lost control, lost herself, lost everything.

Fitting, in a sick sort of way, and Berlin wishes she had the strength to care, wishes she could bring herself to get up, to shove her away again, to do anything but _this_.

She doesn’t, though. She doesn’t have anything left at all, and when Irisa holds her tight and whispers _“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,”_ all Berlin can do is scream again and pray that she can drown it all out.

*

She doesn’t remember passing out, but she must have because she comes around to sunlight and the sickening _crack_ of her head hitting the wall.

The world comes into focus slowly and queasily, not helped at all by the pending not-quite-concussion; everything is swirling, a hazy blur of noise and chaos that makes her wish she was still unconscious, and it feels like a lifetime before she’s alert enough to figure out what the hell is going on. The torn-up office swerves in front of her for about half a second, and then it’s gone again, lost to a spray of stars and colour as she’s shoved back again, a flurry of curses lost to the post-violence hangover groan.

“—the hell do you think you’re doing?”

 _Nolan_ , she realises. Her vision clears, just long enough to recognise his face, dangerously close to hers in the split-second before he slams her head back again. No surprise that he’s pissed, given what he’s walked in on, and the part of her that isn’t headache-blind wants to smirk at the way he cusses her out, spitting threats and warnings like he has any place to do any of that. Well, she supposes, it’s not like he didn’t warn her; the last time she and Irisa got into it like this he pointed a gun at her face and threatened to bury her; now, apparently, he’s going for the more direct approach. Well, let him try, she thinks, and doesn’t bother fighting back.

“Keep it down,” she mutters instead. “You’re not the only one with a hangover.”

He shakes her for that, fists balled around her collar, and she musters a smirk because he’s not denying it. “I’ll ask you again,” he says, voice lower but no less deadly; apparently he’s as predictable as he is overprotective. “What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing?”

“Nolan!”

Irisa, of course, cutting them off before Berlin has a chance to defend herself. Typical, Berlin thinks, and definitely doesn’t dwell on the fact that she probably couldn’t have come up with a riposte on her own anyway.

With obvious effort and a great deal of noise, Irisa stumbles to her feet; she looks about as groggy as Berlin feels, and that’s the best she can say about her. Her face is still a mess, half-dried blood and swollen bruises, but she doesn’t let any of it slow her down even a little; she’s pissed, and she has every intention of letting dear old dad know about it. It’s kind of hard to tell, honestly, if she’s more embarrassed about the intervention or the fact that they got caught doing this stuff in the first place. Either way, she won’t let her father fight her battles for her; she lunges between the two of them, half-drunk too by the look of her, and drags Nolan away.

“I warned her,” he snaps, but doesn’t resist as she sits him down at the desk. He’s only going along with it because he can’t deny his precious daughter anything, Berlin can tell, but what does she care so long as he’s not breathing into her face? “You heard me. Hell, half the damn town heard me. She’s got it in for you, kiddo, and—”

“Damn right,” Berlin mutters, rubbing the back of her head. “Gee, I wonder why.”

Nolan glares. “Didn’t I tell you I’d bury you if you laid a hand on her? You got anything other than booze between your ears, or do you just got a death wish?”

Berlin rolls her eyes, ignores the pulse of pain behind them. “She asked for it,” she grunts. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Nolan narrows his eyes. “You—”

Berlin cuts him off. “Coming in here in the middle of the night with her guilty conscience, begging me to rough her up. What was I supposed to do? And, yeah, I tried _‘go away and leave me the hell alone.’_ Believe me.”

Nolan cuts a glance at Irisa. “This true?”

Irisa opens her mouth, but Berlin doesn’t given her a chance, silencing her with a glare before she can even get a word out. “Told her to go home a dozen times. Not my fault she didn’t listen. Not my fault she kept pushing.” She clenches her jaw. “Maybe you should try bitching at her instead.”

To no-one’s surprise, Nolan is less than appeased. “That’s really what you’re going with?” he snaps. “ _‘She was asking for it’_?” Berlin grunts her affirmation, and he throws up his hands in disgust. “Hell of a lawkeeper you’ll turn out to be if you can’t keep it in your pants for five goddamn minutes.”

That’s a rich turn of phrase coming from him, and all the more so given their history, and Berlin barks a laugh. She doesn’t dignify him with a response beyond that, of course, but going by the look on his face he wasn’t expecting one. She braces against the wall for a moment or two, makes sure she can stay upright under her own power, then steps away. Nolan’s eyes are on her, as keen and sharp as any charge-blade, and Berlin makes a point of ignoring him, just like she tried to ignore his damn daughter last night. Wasn’t very effectual then, of course, but even at his most belligerent Nolan is way more toothless than Irisa.

The place is a mess, and Berlin can tell that putting things back in some kind of order is going to be a day’s job in itself. The paperwork, arguably the only important part, is torn-up and bloodstained and scattered all over the place; it’s effectively useless, and for all that Berlin couldn’t care less what Nolan thinks or says about her, she shudders to think of what Amanda will have to say when she hears about it. Nolan can threaten to murder her as much as he likes for fooling around with his daughter, but Amanda will do it for real the second she catches sight of this place.

 _Whatever_ , she thinks. It’s not the first time she turned a place upside-down after a rough night, and it probably won’t be the last. Good luck finding someone else to do her job at the moment.

“Nolan.”

Irisa again, albeit a little softer than before. She’s got a hand on his arm, and Berlin doesn’t need to see her face to know that she’s wearing that wide-eyed innocent look, that butter-wouldn’t-melt bullshtak that seems to win over anyone who gets within a hundred klicks. Bitch could probably sweet-talk the gulanite out of the ground given half a chance.

Nolan sighs, already softening. “Kiddo…”

“No.” She wields that word like a weapon, like she could shoot a man at thirty paces with it. Probably could, at that. “I’m not a kid any more. I haven’t been in a long time. And I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.”

“Oh?” There’s real weight behind the word. “Because you’re doing such a great job of fighting for yourself?” It’s strange, hearing that kind of accusation from him; he usually dotes on her, blind to everything she does (up to and including mass murder, apparently), and Berlin is fairly sure she’s never heard him take that tone with her before. “In case you haven’t noticed, kiddo, you’re not exactly in any condition to—”

“Right,” Berlin cuts in before she can stop herself. “Poor Irisa. She’s so helpless, isn’t she? Poor innocent little murderer.”

“Shut it.” It’s a threat, the kind that even Berlin knows better than to challenge on a morning of mutual hangovers. “I don’t care if she came here with a written invitation. I don’t care if she held a goddamn gun to your head. You stay the hell away from her from now on.”

That does it. Berlin’s about a hair’s breadth away from kicking the two of them out of her office (because, yeah, whatever Nolan might have going for him, she’s still the lawkeeper and this is her chupping workspace), and about the only thing that stops her is knowing that things will just end up the worse for her if she does. They’re supposed to be getting along or some such shtako, the legitimate lawkeeper and the happy cowboy who likes to throw around the fact that her job used to be his… oh, and the mass-murdering alien. All happy families, right? That’s what Amanda would have them believe, anyway, and one look around this place is a pointed reminder that Berlin can’t afford to scrape the ice she’s standing on any thinner.

So, then. Let them have the office if they want it so badly, at least for now. She’s sick to death of this place anyway.

It’s not easy, taking the moral high ground when she knows she’s right, but at least she can throw it like a tantrum. She tosses down the armful of paperwork she’d managed to gather up, lets it scatter all over again, and storms to the door. It’s very deliberate, the way she muscles past them both, separating them and elbowing Irisa into the desk. Nolan grits out another warning, but Berlin ignores him; she’s not about to raise a hand against him, not when he hasn’t really done anything to deserve it, but she’s sure as shtak not willing to stick around while he bitches her out for giving his stupid masochistic daughter what she wanted.

“Fine,” she snarls, ripping the door open so violently it’s a miracle it doesn’t come right off its hinges. “Then you keep _her_ the hell away from _me_.”

“Fine by me,” Nolan says, and eyeballs Irisa. “You heard the woman.”

Irisa, of course, ignores him. Should’ve expected that, really; it’s not like she listens to anyone. “Berlin…”

Berlin slams the door in her face.

*

She stomps around town for maybe an hour, then goes to the NeedWant.

No surprises there; where else would she go with a hangover the size of a small planet? Her head’s pounding, and as much as she’d love to blame it on Nolan and his wannabe-cowboy brand of vigilante justice, she knows it’s her own damn fault. Seems like most things are these days.

Anyway, whatever positive effects last night’s booze might have had are long gone by now, and she’s pretty sure she can actually feel her brain cells dissolving. The last thing she needs right now is another headache that won’t quit and a new queasy feeling to go with the one she always gets after spending time with Team Nolan. Besides, after Irisa knocked down half of her precious liquor last night to prove some stupid point, she figures she’s owed another drink. Or six.

Apparently, she figures wrong. No sooner has she got her hand on the glass, filled almost to overflowing with the good stuff, than she finds it swept right out from under her.

“You’re supposed to be on duty.”

Berlin doesn’t look up. She doesn’t need to. “Look who’s talking,” she mutters. “Or don’t the rules apply when you’re the mayor?”

“Touché.” The word is wet, murmured over the rim of the glass, and Berlin turns around just in time to see her drink disappear down Amanda’s throat. “But then, I’m not the one starting fights I’m supposed to be stopping, am I?”

Berlin doesn’t need to ask who told her or how she knows; it’s obvious. The first answer is always _Nolan_ and the second is always _she knows everything_. No sense trying to deny it, or even scrambling for some iota of dignity, so she doesn’t bother. Not much point in that, she supposes, given that it’s barely mid-morning and she’s already scowling at the bar.

So, instead, she just rolls her eyes and glares at her stolen glass. “She started it.”

Amanda laughs. “I’m sorry, are we six years old?”

Berlin bites down on a few choice curses, fights to keep from rising to the bait. “She killed Tommy,” she snaps, like she hasn’t said this a thousand times already. “And she’s the one coming to me in the middle of the night with her masochism and her guilty conscience and whatever other issues she wants me to work through for her.”

Amanda’s rolling her eyes too, now. “Spare me.”

“With pleasure,” Berlin says. “Now, if we’re done here, can I have my drink back?”

Amanda shakes her head. Of course she does. She makes a show of finishing the drink, all slow and seductive and smacking her lips, probably more out of spite than any actual thirst for it, then sets the glass back down.

“Berlin…” she starts, then changes her mind. “ _Jess_.”

This time Berlin does curse. She hates that name, hates the stupid weak-willed coward that used to wear it. There’s a reason she’s let the less-than-flattering nickname stick over the years; hell, there’s a reason she encouraged it. Amanda knows that, just like she knows everything, but more and more lately she’s been pushing for this shtako, this _‘Jess’_ nonsense, like it makes them more than colleagues, maybe even more than friends, like it makes them family. Berlin hates that even at the best of times, but it’s doubly frustrating coming from someone as calculating and clever as Amanda. There’s always a price attached to a name from her, always a proviso.

In this case, it’s probably a guilt trip. Amanda loves that shtick, the _‘I gave you a job when the E-Rep left’_ and _‘I gave you a purpose’_ bull. Honestly, Berlin wouldn’t mind so much if she just came out and said it straight — _‘I’m the reason you have a job and a bed; I’m the reason you’re still safe’_ — instead of playing these stupid mind-games, but of course she’s too white-bread for that. She can’t rub her face in it, that’d be unprofessional, so instead she turns it into something else, something subtle that sticks in the throat so it’s never forgotten. She’s been shovelling that shtako for months now, and Berlin’s as sick and tired of hearing it as she is of people stealing her drinks.

Because, yeah, this isn’t the first time they’ve been here. Berlin sulking over an early-morning vice, Amanda playing the broken-wing _‘I’ve been there, I understand’_ card, putting on the sad eyes as she downs Berlin’s booze like it’s such a damn chore to score a free drink, acting like a mutual appreciation for drowning their sorrows is the basis for a proper relationship. If she really understood, Berlin thinks cruelly, she wouldn’t be making that damn face and pretending that it somehow makes the whole thing better, like empathy is some kind of miracle cure. Whatever. It’s never worked before, and it’s not about to work now.

Maybe Amanda senses some of that, the malice pouring off Berlin in waves. Maybe she realises the sweet-talk and soft sympathy won’t work today, because she changes tack and hardens her face to a frown.

“You’re the lawkeeper, Jess.” There’s that stupid name again, emphasised and sharpened to a point. “The town’s got it bad enough as it is. We’re hanging on by a—”

“I know that.”

She catches the barkeep’s eye. There’s no need to say anything — they know her well enough around here by now — so she just cocks her head and waits for the next glass to plonk itself down in front of her. Amanda doesn’t try to take it this time, and she doesn’t argue, but she keeps the disgust right there on the surface, makes Berlin pay the price of her indulgence in disapproval.

“You’re a mess,” Amanda says.

Berlin knows that too, and she doesn’t give a damn. She makes a concentrated effort to ignore her, the kind voice and the not-so-kind words, but it’s harder than she’d ever admit. Amanda has never been one for subtlety, and there’s something very deliberate now in the way she picks her apart with her eyes, lingering on her clothes, the crumples and creases in the fabric, the bloodstains smeared across her shirt and knuckles, the dark circles under her eyes; she’s an expert at dissection, and she takes in all the places where Berlin is ragged and exposed, all the places that Irisa tore open in the night, all the holes she’s trying so desperately to paper over with booze.

“Go home,” Amanda continues after a moment. Berlin takes a pointed swallow, and has to work a little harder than she’d care to admit to mask her grimace. “Get cleaned up. A hot shower, a change of clothes, you’ll feel—”

“Don’t tell me what I’ll feel!” Bolstered by the heat in her head, she slams the glass back down on the bar. Liquid sloshes over the sides, and she growls at the pointless waste. “I can take care of myself.”

“I’m well aware of that.” Amanda’s voice is soft but dangerous, and when Berlin meets her eyes they’re as hard as steel. “And if you think for a second that this is about you, you’ve fallen further than I thought.”

She’s exhausted too, Berlin realises for the first time. Her eyes are bruise-dark, the effect made all the more stark by how pale the rest of her is, sallow and drawn under all that mayoral make-up. Should’ve noticed it sooner, she supposes, and shakes her head.

“Right,” she says after a moment, swallowing thickly. “The town.”

“The town,” Amanda echoes, irritable. “I don’t give a damn what you do on your downtime, Jess, or how you work through your grief. That’s your cross to bear, not mine. But Defiance needs a lawkeeper who can do her job and at least pretend to keep a level head while she’s doing it. God knows we’ve got enough on our plate right now, and if you’re going to start falling apart just because Irisa’s back in town…” Berlin recoils at that, sucking in her breath through her teeth, and Amanda quickly changes tack. “Look. I’m just saying, if you need to take some time off to get your head back on straight, I’m sure I could find a replacement.”

“Oh, I’ll bet you could.” She rolls her eyes, bitter and sullen and probably wholly unfair. “And isn’t it just a happy coincidence that he’s just rolled back into town?”

Amanda doesn’t deny it; she couldn’t even if she wanted to, and they both know it. Besides, she’s too practical, maybe even respectful in her own way, to try. There’s no point sugar-coating this stuff when it’s right there in front of them, when they’re both smart enough and almost mature enough to know what it means; besides, she probably doesn’t want to risk getting Berlin even more pissed than she already is. Not here, anyway, and not with half a glass of paint stripper poured like salt over a bleeding hangover; that’s a powder-keg the town’s beloved mayor knows all too intimately herself.

“He’s done the job before,” she says, like that’ll soothe the sting. “And right now he’d be a whole lot more reliable than a lawkeeper who drinks on the job and beats innocent people to a pulp because they ‘asked for it’.” She throws up her hands as she says that last part, like she still can’t believe the shtako she has to put up with. “ _Jesus_ , Jess…”

“Jesus yourself,” Berlin shoots back. The curse is an empty one now, a long-dead revenant from an age she doesn’t even remember, but old ideals die hard and it works well enough against old-world nostalgists like Amanda and Nolan. “Irisa’s not innocent. Never was. She was a killer long before she killed Tommy, and you know it.”

Amanda sighs. “I didn’t come here to fight.”

“No. You came here to get up on your moral high horse and play peacekeeper. You came here to stop me from getting drunk and putting that Irathient murderer in the ground where she belongs.”

Amanda shakes her head, more out of frustration than denial. “Jess.”

But Berlin doesn’t even pause for breath. “Well, you can save it. Your holier-than-thou speeches, your murder apologism, all of it.” She yanks the lawkeeper’s badge off her chest. “Give it to him. See if I care. I’ve got more important things to worry about.”

“No, you don’t.” Amanda’s voice is a tremor. Berlin’s badge hits her square in the chest when she throws it, then bounces off and clatters onto the bar. “The town’s in trouble. Real trouble. We can’t afford to get selfish, and we definitely can’t afford to let ourselves get caught up in petty vendettas. We can’t, okay? We _can’t_.” Berlin swallows, feeling ill, but Amanda doesn’t give her a chance to digest it. “I know you’re grieving. God knows, I understand how painful it is, having to spend every day looking at the woman who killed your…”

She cuts herself off, sharp and sudden, like a power-cut, and Berlin quirks a brow. “My…?”

Amanda shakes her head, presses on with maddening professionalism. “Someone important to you,” she amends softly. “Believe me, I know what that’s like. But self-destruction won’t help anyone. Not the town, and not yourself either.” She sighs. “What would Tommy think if he could see you?”

That cuts. Deep, hard, and definitely not clean; it’s a serrated blade against her throat and Berlin bites her lip hard enough to drown that pain with fresh blood. “I wouldn’t know,” she rasps. “Because he _can’t_.”

“Jess.” She sounds like Nolan when he talks to Irisa, like a beleaguered parent clicking her tongue at a disobedient kid, like Berlin’s just some stubborn urchin who doesn’t know how good she’s got it. “Irisa cared about Tommy too. They were very close.” Berlin knows that, of course; honestly, it’s a big part of the problem. “And believe me, whatever you do to her, it can’t be worse than what she’s doing to herself. Don’t you think he’d want you to try and get along?”

Berlin’s not so sure about that. Tommy was never forthcoming with details; hell, most of the time he just went out of his way to keep them away from each other. Maybe things would’ve been different if he hadn’t, if he’d opened up instead of keeping the little Irathient bitch to himself, hiding what she was and what she was capable of like he thought Berlin couldn’t handle it. If he’d just been honest from the start…

Well. A lot of things might have been different, mightn’t they? But they’re not, and he’s not around to see the mess his secrecy left behind. Thinking about it opens far more wounds than it closes, and Berlin shakes it off with another mouthful of booze.

“I doubt it,” she says aloud, but the only word that lands is _doubt_.

Amanda touches her arm, her hand. “Irisa’s been through a lot,” she says, and doesn’t let go even when Berlin’s fingers go vice-tight. “God knows, she can’t forgive herself. But you…”

Berlin empties the glass. “What? You think I’m a bigger person?”

“I think you’re a better one.” She sighs. “At least, I think you could be.”

“I don’t think so.”

It stings, admitting it, and Amanda seems to get that. She squeezes her hand, palm warm and fingers surprisingly strong, and lowers her voice. “I know you don’t. But I do. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

“Because you’re such a great judge of character?”

Amanda actually laughs at that. It’s weak, like the smile that cracks her cheeks, but it’s there. That’s something, Berlin supposes; it’s been entirely too long since either of them laughed with anything like sincerity.

“I guess not,” she says, and they both sigh.

Berlin swallows hard. The aftertaste of liquor and blood turns sour and sickly on her tongue, and she grimaces, wishing she could get away with ordering another to wash it away. Amanda is so damn frustrating at times like this, so condescending but so approachable at the same time, and it drives her crazy. It makes her want to leave, to run away and hide somewhere safe, somewhere without people depending on her, somewhere she can be the pathetic little coward she still sees when she looks in the mirror. It makes her want to take Amanda by the collar and shake her until she sees that person too, until she learns that you can’t take someone away from what they were and expect them to become something else.

That would be fine in itself, but it’s not all. Because that damn broken-wing look, those damn sad eyes… they make her want to do other things as well. They make her want to break down and expose everything, all the hate and hurt, all the violence inside of her, the bitterness and the resentment and the grief that’s ripping holes in her most vulnerable parts. She wants to lay bare the way she can’t control herself when she sees Irisa’s face, the way her every nerve lights up when she sees those wide alien eyes, the way she can’t bear the wetness in them, the shaking or the stammer, the way she broke down when Irisa said _‘I’m sorry’_.

She wants Amanda — wants _someone_ — to understand what all that feels like, what it’s like to be so driven by grief and loss and violence, to be so much a victim of her own thoughts, her own feelings, her own damn body. Irisa is so many things, each more horrible than the last, and Berlin hates herself for the way she hates her.

“This is shtako,” she says aloud.

Amanda’s smile dissolves, melts into something lost and lonely.

“Yeah.” The word is a wash of her own grief. “It is.”

*


	2. Chapter 2

*

Grudgingly, she takes Amanda’s advice.

Well, some of it, anyway. She goes home (a struggle in itself given that she wants nothing more than to stay at the bar for the rest of her life), and makes an effort at cleaning herself up. She finds a set of clothes that don’t smell of blood and booze and _Irisa_ , that don’t stick to her skin in unfortunate places and remind her of unfortunate things; she tries to take a shower, too, but apparently the first part used up what strength she had because when she steps into the bathroom her legs refuse to hold her up. They give out, leaving her crouched on the floor, shivering and pathetic and utterly useless.

Not that it matters much; the water’s cold anyway, and she’s pretty sure it’s not much cleaner than she herself is. Still, she spends maybe an hour there, shivering in that tiny little cubicle just so she can say she did it. She waits, worn down and moody, for her strength to come back or for the water to drown her; at this point, either one of them would be just fine.

It’s a long time before she can bring herself to move, to get up and put on the new clothes that are too clean and too crisp and too dry. She spends a lot of time lying on her back on the bedroom floor staring up at the ceiling and failing to move. Stupid, probably, but it all feels so damn _hard_. It’s simple stuff, she knows — get cleaned up, get dressed, get to work or whatever passes for it — but it feels like such a damn struggle. She hates that, hates that she’s still not used to the grief and the pain and the emptiness that grips her when she’s by herself, hates that she’s not strong enough to power through it yet, that all it took was the sight of Tommy’s murderer to undo seven months of getting better.

When she does finally get dressed, it’s mostly just because she’s too cold to stay curled up on the floor. Bad enough being broken, but broken and frozen is where she draws the line.

The sun’s very high when she ventures back out onto the street, midday or later, and her head is pounding like one of those godawful old-world radio tracks. Amanda clearly had no idea what the hell she was talking about when she sent her away; clean clothes and clean skin are all well and good, and no doubt she at least looks the part of a (possibly ex-)lawkeeper now, but she doesn’t feel any better than she did before. If she’s honest, the decided lack of liquor is making her feel a whole lot worse, and pretty much the only thing that keeps her from doubling back to the NeedWant is the certainty that Amanda will have already spoken to all the damn bartenders and told them to cut her off. It’s a waste of time and effort, in truth, but whatever; if the revered mayor wants to waste her time trying to save the E-Rep scum from herself, hey, it’s her time to waste.

In spite of her better judgement, she takes a peek into the lawkeeper’s office. Through the window, obviously, not the door, because apparently a rough morning makes her immature as well as stubborn. It’s not much of a surprise to see that Nolan’s still there; apparently he’s all but set up shop, sprawled out at her desk with his feet up, messing around with her paperwork like he owns the place. He’s not wearing her badge, though, so at least that’s something; no doubt Amanda’s holding on to it so she can give it back with a few self-righteous lectures when Berlin’s sobered up. Can’t get out of the job that easily, apparently, though it’s not much comfort when Nolan’s already taking it as a given that he’s welcome to make her office his home.

She’s halfway tempted, no doubt by that same streak of stubborn immaturity, to storm in there and kick him in the balls until he leaves. She could make a decent point out of it, too, playing up the _‘this is my town’_ shtako that cowboys like him eat for breakfast, but as delicious as it is to imagine him falling backwards and hitting his head on the floor, she doesn’t indulge it. The last thing she needs right now is to come across as petty, not when she’s already on thin ice and he’s the town’s favourite big-name hero. No prizes for guessing which of the two of them would come out worse in that fight, even if she would be in the right for throwing a swing in the first place.

_Whatever_ , she thinks again. Let the bastard sit there if he wants. Hell, if it keeps him off her back, let him parade his damn daughter around and call her ‘deputy’. So long as they stay the hell away from her, she doesn’t give a damn.

(Except, well, she kind of does, doesn’t she? Still, she has to pretend it’s all good. If she lets go of that, what else does she have?)

In lieu of anywhere else to go, she finds herself sat down outside the mayor’s offices. She’s not exactly looking forward to the conversation — it could go one of two ways, and Berlin strongly suspects that both of them will end with Nolan still sitting in her chair — but she’s got nothing else to do, and for the time being she’s at least forty per cent sober, so… well, better now than later.

Amanda was right, Berlin knows: Defiance has more than its fair share of trouble, and if Nolan’s shtako about VC invaders is to be believed they’ll need all available hands, even the grieving unsteady ones. Hell, even if the VC stuff is all bunk, knowing this town there’ll probably be some fresh new crisis crashing through their door within a week anyway. Turns out, that’s the way things work out here. That shouldn’t surprise her, really; apparently, her luck is about as crappy as the rest of her.

It shouldn’t surprise her either, given the way her day’s been going, that out of everyone in the whole damn town it’s not Amanda who finds her but Irisa.

Again.

She’s in a hurry, and apparently not looking where she’s going. Presumably Nolan’s sent her out to fetch lunch or something because she’s scurrying back to the lawkeeper’s office weighted down with soup and food and who even knows what else. Busy, distracted, and chupping selfish, she doesn’t even bother to look down, and the next thing Berlin knows, her clean dry clothes are neither clean nor dry and she’s splayed flat on her back with a surprisingly heavy Irathient wriggling and swearing on top of her.

Berlin doesn’t bother swearing herself; by this point, it’s too absurd. Instead, she stares up at the sky, spreads her arms as best she can, and cries, “Are you _kidding_ me?”

Irisa scrambles back to her feet, mumbling incoherently in Irathient; for a second or two she doesn’t recognise her, doesn’t realise who she’s hit or what she’s done. It’s almost kind of funny, because Berlin recognises the exact second the reality catches up with her, the precise moment that flustered irritation turns to skin-blanching panic. On someone else, it might be hilarious, the way her mouth drops open and her eyes widen to dinner plates; she looks about ready to burst a blood vessel or ten, and if she was anyone else Berlin might’ve taken pity on her. But it’s not, is it? It’s _Irisa_ , again, and Berlin is at least three confrontations past the point of pity.

“Oh…” All of a sudden, that rough-edged Irathient voice is very tiny. “Oh, shtako.”

Berlin doesn’t move. She’s not entirely sure she trusts herself to. Irisa’s standing above her, swaying like her body can’t figure out whether it wants to run away while she still can or stick around and face the music, but Berlin just lies there staring up at the sky and wondering what the hell she ever did to deserve this, what kind of horrible awful torture she must have inflicted on puppies and children in a former life to make this her present one.

The irony, the outright absurdity of that thought burns under her skin, a writhing skittering sensation that makes her want to scream. Irisa, who nuked a whole damn city, who killed Tommy in cold blood and blamed it on some stupid machine, who has done worse things than Berlin can even imagine, gets to stroll around doing whatever the hell she likes; meanwhile Berlin, who has only ever done what she truly believed was necessary, is the one who can’t catch a chupping break, who can’t go anywhere or do anything without getting punished for it. It’s not fair. It’s not _fair_ , and in a moment of rage-fuelled insanity she lets herself snap.

She lurches upright, catching Irisa by the shirt with both fists. Irisa is helpless in her grip, like a trapped animal or something, and she can only stare open-mouthed and fumbling as Berlin shakes her so hard that they both get dizzy.

“Why?” she howls, and the word sounds like a sob, like a scream, like last night in the lawkeeper’s office, like the hazy half-forgotten moments before the liquor and the loathing knocked her out. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“I…” Irisa’s shaking her head, useless and befuddled. Berlin shakes her again. “I didn’t know you were here.”

The point is a valid one, though that doesn’t stop Berlin from shaking her again. Why would Irisa have thought to look for her here? This is probably the last place anyone would expect to find the supposed lawkeeper, hunkered down on Amanda’s doorstep like some kind of down-and-out derelict. She’d have no reason to look down, even a fleeting glance; it’s against all possible odds that they’d find each other here at all.

And yet, here they are again, both of them, and it’s so unfair that Berlin can scarcely stand it. Everywhere she goes, everywhere she looks, _everywhere_ , there she is. It’s enough to drive healthier people than her to madness.

At this point, she can’t help wondering if maybe there’s some twisted part of her that is just as much to blame for all this as Irisa, like maybe in some messed-up corner of her brain she secretly _wants_ to keep running into the little bitch, wants to keep getting these gift-wrapped excuses to beat her bloody and break down and pour out the hurt that Amanda refuses to let her drown in drink. It wouldn’t be the first time she bled herself dry for the thrill of making someone else bleed more.

Irisa’s yammering at her, slack-jawed _“sorry”_ spilling out over and over again, just like last night. Funny, how she seems to think the words will miraculously mean more in the cold light of day, how she seems to think they would ever mean anything at all coming from her. Berlin wants to do terrible things to her face, her throat, wants to strangle into silence every part of her that’s capable of speech. But she’s sober now, or at least the sane side of drunk, and her stupid inhibitions are too strong to let her lash out this time. She wants to, so badly it hurts, but she doesn’t, and she’s not sure which of the two of them she hates more for it.

It’s all too close to the surface. The violence, the hate, all the things they both know about, the things Irisa knows all too intimately. All that, yeah, but the other stuff as well, the stuff that isn’t so easy to lock down inside; violence can be satisfied by punching and kicking and breaking things, and Irisa (lunatic that she is) is more than complicit in letting her do just that, but the rest won’t wash away in a river of blood and a wasteland of bruises. It’s the stuff that drove her to drink too much in the first place, the stuff that never goes away, that echoes in her head and never ends, a symphony of grief that goes on and on and on until she wants to scream.

She will, she realises. Sobriety might stave off the violence, but it doesn’t stop the grief, and if Berlin doesn’t get the hell out of here right now, she really will start screaming. And once she starts…

Irisa sees that. Somehow, by some damn miracle, she sees it, and she knows what it means. Berlin doesn’t say anything, probably couldn’t say anything even if she wanted to, but still somehow Irisa knows everything. It makes Berlin feel sick, the thought that maybe they’re not so far away from each other as she wants to believe, that maybe there’s some little piece of what she’s going through that resonates with Irisa’s own traumas, her own grief and guilt and—

_No_. Irisa isn’t allowed to feel any of those things. They’re not hers, can’t be hers; Berlin won’t let them be hers. That pain is Berlin’s, and Irisa has no damn right to look at her and see her own ghosts.

But here she is, doing exactly that. Looking, seeing, understanding, like there’s more to this whatever-it-is between them than the violence and the hate and the dark things that quicken in Berlin’s blood, the forbidden hatred that brought Irisa to the lawkeeper’s office in the middle of the night begging to bleed too. Here they are, both of them, looking at each other like they’re not so different after all, like Berlin’s hate isn’t so far away from Irisa’s hurt.

Here they are, yes, and Berlin is too broken and too sober to stop Irisa from doing those things she shouldn’t be allowed to do. Too broken, too sober, too damn _weak_ to stop her from reaching out, touching her not just with her eyes and her feelings but with her body as well. Too much of too many things she swore she wouldn’t be, and it hurts worse than anything else she can imagine that she’s lying here and letting it happen, letting herself be dragged to her feet, letting Irisa hold her upright and guide her away from this place, from spilled soup and stained clothing, from the urge to scream and the breakdown that will happen if she does. It hurts worse than anything, _anything_ , that she can’t stop her, can’t shatter her, that she isn’t strong enough to make herself hurt less by making Irisa hurt more.

She’s _helpless_. But Irisa is helping, and honestly, that hurts worst of all.

*

They end up back at the lawkeeper’s office.

Berlin actually laughs at that, a strangled wheezing sound; apparently, this is the only place in town Irisa actually knows. Nothing new in that, and even less in the fact that Nolan is definitely not thrilled to see them. His eyes go saucer-wide when they stumble in, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing, and… well, to be frank, Berlin’s right there with him. Of all the places to dump her, of course Irisa picks the worst one.

Caveman that he is, Nolan’s already halfway out of his chair before they’re all the way through the door; he’s got one hand on his hailer and the other on his gun, like he expects her to start wrecking the place right here and now. It’s kind of hilarious, honestly, because as tempting as the idea is Berlin’s in no fit state to wreck anything right now. Really, he should’ve got that particular memo when he saw his daughter still in one piece.

He keeps his eye on Irisa, like he can protect her from the big bad lawkeeper if he glares hard enough. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“That’s what I said,” Berlin mumbles, mostly to herself.

Nolan ignores her, and Irisa ignores them both. She locks eyes with her father, cocks her head towards the door, and puts on that kicked-puppy innocent face that they both know he’ll gobble down like candy. “Give us a minute?”

Nolan gawks, like she’s just asked him to run naked through town. To be fair, at this point it would probably be less scandalous if she had.

“Seriously?” he asks, cutting a glance at Berlin. She shrugs. “You remember what happened the last time you two had a ‘minute’ together, right?”

“I remember.”

“And the time before that?”

“Remember that too.”

They turn, then, moving in comedic unison to study her, like this is all a one-way street, like she’s the irrational trigger-happy violence jockey and Irisa’s the sweet-faced little cherub who just happens to always end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. _Yeah, right,_ she thinks, and stares at the desk, at the boot-prints stomped all over her paperwork, at the shattered glass Nolan hasn’t bothered to sweep up. She won’t let these two idiots make her feel exposed, and she sure as shtak won’t let them make her feel smaller or more pathetic than she already does.

“Don’t ask me,” she mumbles, and grits her teeth. “This was her idea.”

Nolan’s shaking his head, disbelief coupled with a kind of _here-we-go-again_ surrender. No doubt he’s used to this sort of ill-advised shtako from Irisa by now, and Berlin can’t hide the relief that shudders through her when he gives up on glaring at her and turns back to his kid.

“You’re serious,” he says, a resigned sort of statement that can’t quite make itself a question.

“Yes.”

“Even though we both know she’ll probably—”

“Nolan.” The name is a plea, and that’s all it takes; in a heartbeat, all three of them know that Nolan’s done for. “Please.”

He sighs, muttering less-than-flattering things under his breath. For a few vindictive moments, Berlin considers reminding him that this place is hers, not his (well, not until he actually gets the goddamn badge, at least, but with any luck he doesn’t know that part); she could kick him out in a second if she wanted to, and he’d have no choice but to obey. That would be petty, though, wouldn’t it? Petty and vengeful, and a bunch of other things that would only serve to reinforce his opinion about her. As badly as she wants to mark her territory, it’s undercut by the need to not give him any more rope to hang her with. Better, at least for the time being, to just glare at the desk and make the point without words.

Besides, she’s one breath away from a breakdown, and the last thing she needs is for a last-ditch feint at authority to get choked off by a sob and a scream. Caveman bastard would never let her hear the end of that.

At long last, and after a feint at arguing that fools absolutely no-one, Nolan gives up. It was, of course, inevitable, but he makes a great show of pretending that he had some say in the matter, that Irisa didn’t have him wrapped around her little finger from the second they walked in here. _So fragile_ , Berlin thinks, and would laugh if she trusted herself not to cry instead.

He narrows his eyes as he stands, scowling pointedly at her and not Irisa, like this was her stupid idea in the first place; Berlin thinks about telling the truth about that, too, pointing out that this is the last place in Defiance she wants to be just now, but she can’t stomach the thought of Irisa turning those puppy-dog eyes on her as well.

“You got five minutes,” Nolan’s griping. “Not a second more. And this place had better still be standing when I get back.”

He squares his shoulders, like that’s some kind of a parting shot or something, and stalks to the door in a cloud of whining and testosterone. Berlin watches him go, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from tossing a few ill-advised quips at his back. She doesn’t look at Irisa, but she can feel those creepy Irathient eyes boring into the side of her head, and it makes her feel very heavy.

“He thinks he’s such a hard-ass, doesn’t he?” she mutters, more to remind herself that she still has some autonomy over her voice than anything else.

Irisa snorts. “He tries,” she says.

“Not very well,” Berlin says. It’s easier, bitching about Nolan, than focusing on where they are and why, and the fact that they’re alone. “I’ve seen more intimidating breakfast foods.”

Irisa musters another wan chuckle, then sobers. “Berlin.”

“Don’t.”

She does. Of course she chupping does. “Are you okay?”

“I said _‘don’t’_.” She means it to sound cutting, but it doesn’t; it’s kind of hard to sound like a bitch when you want to cry, when you’re halfway to crying already, and Irisa’s sad face doesn’t help at all. “Why are you doing this?”

Irisa doesn’t answer. That’d be too much to ask for, Berlin supposes. Instead, she just sits down right there on the floor, like that’s the logical place to sit. Legs crossed, hands folded neatly in her lap, she’s a picture of serenity, all thoughtful and meditative and whatever, studying Berlin without saying a word. Berlin tries to roll her eyes again, and hates herself when they refuse to obey, when the tears sting sharper. 

She won’t admit she’s exhausted, not in front of Irisa, but when she drops down into her chair all the strength just bleeds right out of her.

The chair is warm, thanks to Nolan’s self-righteous ass, but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable. It’s not really designed for comfort, she supposes, not that it matters right now. She lets her eyes slide shut, swallows down the dull ache behind them and drops her head down onto the desk. She wants to scream, to burst into tears, to do any one of a million things that Irisa can’t see, that Irisa will never be allowed to know about her. It’s hard to resist when she can scarcely breathe, but she has to. She can’t let the little bitch win.

“I’m sorry,” Irisa says after a long distended silence.

“I don’t care.” Berlin doesn’t lift her head, lets the edge of the desk soak up the words and the resentment, the tears that she won’t admit she’s let escape. “I don’t want your ‘sorry’. I don’t want your pity. I don’t want anything from you.”

“I thought you wanted to kill me.”

She says it so simply, so matter-of-fact, like that’s a perfectly normal thing to accuse someone of. Berlin snorts a humourless laugh, and refuses to admit how true it is.

“I’m not _you_ ,” she says instead, and hopes it cuts real deep.

It does, or at least it seems to. Irisa makes a strangled noise, the kind a bird might make right before someone wrings its neck. Berlin’s heard Nolan’s blather about machines and Ark-brains and whatever else, all those excuses that paint his precious daughter in a shining light; she’s heard the official story too, that piece-of-shtak book that’s been making the rounds about town, _Goddess of the Badlands_ , like that’s not a hundred unfunny jokes rolled into one. It wasn’t her, they all say, it was the machine.

Fine, but if the look on Irisa’s face right now is a stick to measure by she doesn’t believe it any more than Berlin does. Her face is turning about a hundred colours all at once, pale in one instant and flushed the next, like she doesn’t know what side of the guilt and shame is the worst. Machine or not, she’s the one who pulled the trigger. She’s the one with blood on her hands. And, unlike the rest of this dead-end town, she’s not about to pretend otherwise.

“Hurt me, then,” she says when she recovers herself. “You want to do that, at least.”

Berlin doesn’t deny that. “So what?” she asks. “You’d deserve it.”

“I know.” Another strangled noise, this one cutting into the words, turning them to choked-off sobs. Berlin’s throat, raw as it is with the same thing, empathises. “So do it.”

Berlin rolls her eyes, turns her face to the side, lets the desk cool her skin. “Not this shtako again…”

“Why not?” Irisa shifts a little, and Berlin turns back to find her stretching, lean muscles going tight under that stupid outfit she wears. “It made you feel better.”

It didn’t. That’s the punchline. But she can’t admit that either, can she? “None of your damn business what I feel.”

“If you say so.” Irisa bows her head, body shaking with a heavy sigh. Her hair, long and messy, covers her face; Berlin can’t make out her eyes, but she can see her mouth twisting, shame and sorrow and something else. “I’m sorry about last night, too. For what it’s worth.”

“Like hell.” Berlin twists her own mouth too, a sneer soaked in hate. “You’re sorry we got caught. You’re sorry your caveman father chewed me out for something you asked for. You’re sorry it all turned to piss in the morning, but you’re sure as shtak not sorry about last night.”

Irisa studies her for a moment, squinting through the curtain of her hair like she’s trying to gauge Berlin’s mood before committing herself to an answer, like that’ll stop the inevitable explosion; Berlin glares, makes it very clear that she’s out for honesty not coddling. She might be a hair’s breadth away from a breakdown, but there’s no way in hell she’s going to let that murdering Irathient treat her like something fragile. She’ll tear this place to pieces before she’ll stand by and let that happen, and to hell with whatever school of justice Nolan has in mind.

“Fine,” Irisa says at last, very quietly. “I’m not sorry about last night.”

Berlin huffs. “You really are crazy.”

“I know.” There’s no irony in the way she says it, just quiet acceptance; somehow, that makes Berlin hate her even more. “But no-one else thinks so. They all look at me like I’m some kind of…” She trails off, uneasy, like she can’t think of the right word; Berlin could offer a few, but she doesn’t, and after a moment or two Irisa catches her breath and carries on. “Like there’s nothing wrong. Like I didn’t…”

“Kill your ex-boyfriend in cold blood?” Berlin offers tartly. “Lay waste to an entire city?”

To her credit, Irisa doesn’t shy away from any of that. “They act like it’s just some stupid story. Like that trash book of theirs…”

Berlin twitches, clenches her jaw. “They’re all idiots.”

“No,” Irisa says, and the sorrow in her voice almost rends Berlin’s heart in two. She closes her eyes, breathes in through her nose and holds it. “They just… they don’t understand.”

Berlin exhales in a rush. “Oh, but I do?” She wants to laugh again, but she doesn’t trust herself to try. “Lucky me.”

“No.”

Irisa breathes too for a moment, deep and slow, then stands and crosses to the desk. Berlin tenses at the sudden closeness, the contact when Irisa leans in to touch her, half-gloved fingers pressed to the damp patches on her shirt where she spilled her soup, the dry wrinkles where she never bothers to iron her clothes, all the flaws and failings that mark them both. It sharpens her nerves, ignites heat and passion in her veins, makes her want to forget all the reasons why she didn’t want to be violent this time.

“Amanda thinks I should forgive you,” she blurts out, the words coming from out of nowhere.

“I know.”

Berlin doesn’t ask how. She doesn’t care. “She’s an idiot.”

Irisa closes her eyes, long lashes catching tears. Berlin wants to get rid of them, not with a tender thumb or an open palm, but with a swipe that leaves blood instead of water, bruises instead of salt. She wants to make Irisa earn her tears, wants to make her bleed for daring to let them fall here, for daring to pretend that she deserves to cry for her sins. She wants to slash at her face and then drive the point home with bare knuckles, wants to tear at the tears and suffocate the sobs before they have a chance to start. She wants to do a lot of things that she knows she can’t, and she’s not sure which of them she hates more, Irisa for making her feel this way in the first place or herself for being too damn weak to resist it.

“I don’t want you to forgive me,” Irisa murmurs, almost to herself.

Berlin grits her teeth and swallows, digs her nails into her palms to keep from turning them to claws. “I don’t care what you want.”

“I know,” Irisa says again, and the word is a hot breath against Berlin’s ear.

She’s so close now, so unbearably close. Berlin can smell the sweat and dirt on her clothes, can count her lashes and all the teardrops clinging to them, can trace every mark and blemish on her skin. She wants to add a few more, wants to spell out her name in damage, and she grips the edge of the desk until her knuckles turn deathly pale, clenches her teeth until her jaw starts to ache.

She has to know what she’s doing, Irisa, has to know that she’s lighting fires Berlin won’t be able to control forever. She has to know, because Berlin’s shaking with the effort of holding herself down but still Irisa’s leaning in, further and further, eyes like flames to stoke that fire higher, that unnatural Irathient yellow burning through the rest of her as she presses against her, contact like electricity at shoulder and hip.

She’s begging her again, Berlin realises, just like she did last night, only this time neither of them need to hear the words. _You do understand,_ she’s saying, and the tears shake loose to splash the lie across Berlin’s knuckles.

Berlin doesn’t want to understand. She just wants to make Irisa bleed.

Her hand snaps out almost of its own accord. She doesn’t even get the chance to bite down on the temptation, to fight against the urge; it’s already got hold of her, and before she even knows what she’s doing she’s got Irisa by the back of the neck, fingers digging in.

It’s not like last night. There’s no brutality, no fists or feet lashing out to raise welts and wounds, no blows or slashes to cut through skin and clothes, no fury poured out and then strangled. It’s not like that at all, explosions of force that are over almost before they’ve begun, hate that can be measured in the marks it leaves behind. It’s not, no, but it echoes in the same places, the places that matter, in a grip that turns Berlin’s fingers to steel and a heat that widens Irisa’s eyes to saucers. It’s not predictable, not straightforward, but it’s _something_ , and the screams and the sobs silence themselves in her throat as she squeezes.

Irisa sucks in her breath, shock dissolving into something like satisfaction. Her mouth’s half-open, but not in a cry; if there’s any sound caught in her throat, it’s much closer to encouragement than panic.

Berlin growls, pulls her in closer, tries to wrench a sound out of her. Irisa’s neck pales under her fingers, turning sallow as she applies pressure, but she’s breathing just fine. Berlin breathes too, taking in the tears as their foreheads touch, Irisa’s big and flat and so damn alien against her own. Her teeth feel impossibly sharp in her mouth, like they’re not really hers at all, like maybe there’s a little part of her deep down inside that isn’t completely human either; it’s almost beyond her control, the way she leans in to bite Irisa’s cheek, tasting the salt and swallowing the sting.

The contact makes Irisa flinch; she doesn’t pull back, but she hisses. It’s not the kind of sound Berlin would expect in a moment like this, pain and shock and confusion, but something else, something that seethes like the murderer she is, like the killer and the alien savage, like the sadist who would kill Tommy and the masochist who would pay for his life with her own blood, like all the things Berlin always knew were rotting inside of her, all the things Nolan pretends don’t exist, all the things Amanda tries so hard to believe aren’t real. They can deny it all they want, but Berlin has always known the truth and it’s no surprise at all to find it pouring from her now.

Irisa’s teeth are sharp as well, sharpened almost to fangs, and she makes sure Berlin feels it when she turns her head, snapping like a wild thing at her fingers, her thumb, her wrist…

She doesn’t break the skin; Berlin doesn’t let her. She pushes her away, lurches to her feet, surging up to her full height. It’s not much of a difference, but she knows how to use the few inches she has, and Irisa’s already half-stumbling back even before she’s fully upright. The chair falls backwards, clattering noisily to the floor, but they both ignore it. Irisa’s struggling to catch her balance, but Berlin doesn’t give her a chance; she throws herself into the space between them, slamming both their bodies up against the wall.

It’s definitely not like last time. She’s not overpowering the murdering little bitch with blows and blood this time, but with the weight of her own body, one hand fisting her hair, the other tight on her hip, and both shaking with an urgency that unbalances them both. Irisa’s head falls back, tilting up to expose her throat. Berlin bites her there, too.

“Murderer,” she snarls, and the blood tastes so much better than it looks.

Irisa’s grip is just as hungry; with one palm spread between her shoulderblades and the other splayed across her ass, she’s holding her in place just as viciously as Berlin is pinning her, holding her mouth to her throat, her teeth to her skin, holding on to the suction and the pressure as Berlin bites and sucks and brands her.

“ _Yes_ ,” she breathes, and there’s no apology in the word this time.

They’re both panting, needy gasps choked out and catching on the air between them, urgency turned to friction in the ruined creases of their clothes and their limbs. Irisa is a wild thing, head thrown back against the wall and hips arching against Berlin’s, and it’s all too easy for Berlin to forget that it’s _her_ , forget that she hates her. It’s all too easy to arch too, rocking against the jut of Irisa’s hip, the curve of her thigh, all too easy to squeeze her eyes shut and imagine it’s Tommy, imagine it’s Conrad, imagine it’s any one of the men and women she’s known in her life. It’s all too easy, oh yes, to forget everything that’s meant to matter and just _feel_.

And she does. For a second, a minute, maybe a decade, she does.

It’s Irisa who stops it. She wriggles out of Berlin’s grip so effortlessly and so easily that Berlin has to wonder why she didn’t do that in the first place. (The answer’s obvious, of course — she didn’t want to — but the less Berlin thinks about that, the better.) There’s desperation in her eyes, and disappointment in the way she pulls away when Berlin makes another grab for her, like she doesn’t want to stop this any more than Berlin does, like she loves the sharp edges and hissing pain almost as much as Berlin likes the taste of it, of _her_. It makes her angry, makes her stomach clench like it’s empty, and it brings some of the old violence back to the surface when she reaches for her again, fist clenching like a spasm in the tangled wash of Irathient hair.

“Nolan.” The name is a whine. “Five minutes. Remember?”

Berlin does remember, unfortunately. Whatever sordid direction this might be heading in, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell it’ll be resolved in five lousy minutes, and she has no intention of getting knocked around again for manhandling his precious daughter. Common sense, such as it is, can’t deny that Irisa’s right, that it’ll be a whole lot easier to slam on the brakes now than wait for the moment to careen off a chupping cliff.

Still, it’s not easy. Hurt and hate, and now heat as well, and all three of them fighting for control. It takes more restraint than Berlin would ever admit to turn away, to bend over (painfully aware of the way her pants ride up in over-sensitive places) and set the chair back on its legs.

“Aren’t you too old to be worrying about whether Daddy’s going to walk in and catch us?” she grumbles, and definitely doesn’t point out that she’s just as concerned as Irisa.

Irisa shrugs, tugs at her clothes in a vain attempt at setting them straight. “You think you could take him?”

“I know I could.” It’s only half a lie; hand to hand, Nolan would probably wipe the floor with her, but Berlin’s not afraid to use her guns if it comes down to it and she’d be only too happy to put a bullet between those pretty blue eyes given half the chance. “He fights too clean.”

“He does a lot of things he shouldn’t,” Irisa says with a shrug.

Berlin gives her a pointed look. “He’s not the only one.”

Irisa doesn’t bother coming up with a comeback; she just sighs and rolls her eyes. Her fingers are twitching, hand hovering indecisively in the space between them, like she wants to reach out, wants to close the space between them and do something tactile, something tangible. Stupid, and more than a little dangerous, given what they’ve just been doing, and apparently she realises that because she stops herself. Probably for the best; it would only end in misery for them both, not that Berlin cares what she does. Whether she uses the stupid hand or not, Berlin still wants to slap it away, lash out so hard that the _crack_ of bone on bone brings Nolan rushing back with his testosteron— _gun_ pointed at her face.

She doesn’t, though, and Irisa doesn’t reach out. They’re both holding themselves in check, keeping themselves under control as best they can; it’s as close to a stalemate as either of them could hope for, though it doesn’t come cheap. Irisa’s fingertips are shaking, useless and voiceless like all the other shtako running around in both their heads, and Berlin has to shut her eyes to block out the sight or risk falling back into the breakdown that brought them here. Her temples are throbbing, a dull queasy ache, and all she can think about is how badly she wants ( _needs_ ) a damn drink.

Amazing, she thinks, how five minutes with Irisa always feels like a lifetime.

She crosses to the door, proud of the way she keeps her legs steady underneath her, the way she only shakes a little bit when she glances back at Irisa. It’s hard not to let her mouth go dry, harder still not to turn around and tackle her again, to hell with Nolan and his five minutes; it’s hard not to do a lot of things, but she bites her tongue until she imagines the taste of blood — not as sweet as Irisa’s, but human — and keeps right on going.

Irisa doesn’t try to stop her. Why would she? She’s got a hand to her neck, fingertips trembling over the sucked-off bruise that Berlin left behind; it’s as close to possession as either of them can allow right now, that mark, and Berlin doesn’t want to admit the things it does to her, picturing Irisa walking around for the rest of the day trying just a little too hard to keep it hidden, trying not to blush when she remembers how it got there.

She lingers in the doorway, gaze locked on Irisa’s throat, and runs her tongue over her teeth.

“Good luck explaining _that_ ,” she says, and flees before Irisa can catch the fire in her eyes.

*

Back outside Amanda’s office, she tries a little too hard not to think about it.

Violence is violence, she decides. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fist to the face or a bite to the throat; either way, Irisa got what was coming to her, nothing less than she deserved. Why should it matter that this time she gave back a little, that she didn’t just lie there and take it like a good little murderer? It’s a stupid thing to be preoccupied with, the straight lines and sharp edges of her body, the flash of her teeth against her wrist, the taste of her skin and the way they moved against each other. That’s not the important part, not at all, and she wills herself to shove it aside, to bury it in the back of her mind with other illicit things she’ll never admit.

She’s so distracted by that, all the not-thinking about things she’s definitely not thinking about, that she doesn’t realise she’s not alone until something bounces off the top of her head.

It’s sharp, metallic, and she doesn’t need to look down to know what it is. It hits the ground with a _plink_ , and rolls in an ever-decreasing circle at her feet. Berlin tries to look away, ignore the stupid thing, but the mid-afternoon sun, wan and wintry as it is, catches the edge of the surface, tarnished and half-rusted but _hers_. She hates those printed letters, hates the familiar shape, hates the way her clothes already miss the weight of it.

_Lawkeeper_ , it says, but the word sticks in her throat when she tries to read it aloud.

“You don’t get off that easily.”

Berlin makes a show of rolling her eyes. “Madame Mayor.”

She nudges the stupid badge with her foot, covering it with dirt and leaving it half-buried. Amanda makes a frustrated noise and sits down next to her. Her whole body is a sigh, tension ebbing and flowing through her like liquor in a glass.

“Lawkeeper.” The word is pointed, painful. Berlin supposes she asked for it, given her own less-than-sincere greeting.

She eyes the badge, scuffed and dirty. “Not replacing me yet, then?”

“That depends.” It doesn’t, Berlin can tell; for all that she’s trying to play the hard-ass authoritarian, Amanda’s never been good at poker faces, and the hint of a smile shows through. “I need a lawkeeper who’ll do their job. Sober, preferably.” She trails off, and her eyes sparkle with trouble. “Or at least a damn sight better at pretending to be.”

Berlin snorts at that. “Never was much good at faking it.”

Amanda doesn’t quite laugh, but it’s a close thing. It’s not often she allows a moment’s mirth to shine through, even mostly aborted like this, and even rarer that she allows such a thing in full view of half the town; Berlin could probably count on one hand the number of times she’s seen Amanda even crack a smile in public, much less fight off a full-on chuckle like that. Could be that she’s trying to set her mind at ease, crack the tension between them, or else maybe she’s as bad at Berlin at papering over a liquid lunch at the NeedWant. Either way, it almost works.

“Come on, Jess,” she says after a moment. Her smile wavers ever so slightly, but it doesn’t fade. “Don’t you think it’d make you feel better, doing an honest day’s work?”

“Don’t know the meaning of the word,” Berlin retorts, but she pins the badge back on her chest just the same.

Amanda sighs, but doesn’t comment on it. Silly, really, like she’s afraid the moment will shatter if she draws attention to it, like she really believes Berlin’s ego is that damn fragile. Once upon a time, maybe, but she’s long past the point of proving herself and caring if other people see it.

For her part, then, Berlin just rolls her eyes, picks up the stupid badge, and makes a show of polishing it, smudging the dirt with her sleeve as if she cares what she looks like, as if Amanda can’t see perfectly well that she’s a whole lot worse off than it is. She must look awful, clothes soaked and stained with Irisa’s stupid soup shtako, creased and crumpled where those wandering Irathient hands left their marks, skin flushed and flustered with the memory of jutting hips, of snapping teeth…

It makes her feel dirty, uncomfortable, and she scratches at the junction between her shirt and her torso. She can’t stop thinking (or not-thinking, definitely _not_ thinking) about the moment, the taste of Irisa’s skin, the smell of sweat and blood and surrender, the way the little murder rocked against her, as needy and urgent and helpless as Berlin herself was, the way she couldn’t bring herself to care that she didn’t have all the power any more.

It makes her feel exposed too, like even her creased and soup-stained clothes aren’t really there at all, and it’s almost unbearable in front of Amanda. _Amanda_ , who’s seen her at her worst, her most drunk and her most hungover, who was a witness in those seven long months to the ravages of grief and hurt and impotent violence, who took pity on someone who was damn near drowning. Amanda, who knows exactly what Berlin looks like when she’s flushed and chupped, and it takes more effort than she’d care to admit to keep the heat at bay, not the need for violence this time but that low-blooming ache for something else, something alien.

_You hate her,_ she reminds herself, over and over again, and washes off the taste by spitting on the ground.

Amanda frowns, noting the state of her clothes for maybe the first time as Berlin tries to straighten them. “I thought I told you to freshen up,” she says.

“I did,” Berlin snaps back with a scowl. “But your boyfriend’s pet murderer had other ideas.”

“Again?” She massages her temples, and the noise that comes out of her mouth can only be described as utter despair. “Can’t you two stay out of each other’s way for a _minute_?”

“They’re the ones setting up camp in my office,” Berlin points out, a petulant-sounding grumble.

“All right, all right.” Amanda looks almost willing to kick all three of them out of town if she thought it would keep the peace for a second or two. “I’ll have a word with Nolan.”

It’s a start, Berlin supposes, and nods her approval. If Irisa isn’t underfoot everywhere she goes, maybe she’ll stand a chance of getting through the day without thinking of her. Maybe even get through a morning or two without drinking her meals off the nearest bar. Maybe, yeah, though that latter part is so far down the line at this point that it might as well be a lifetime away; thinking about it now just reminds her of how unlikely it is that she’ll even get through the next half-hour.

In hindsight, she supposes she should’ve known better than to say that aloud. She barely gets as far as “I need a—” before Amanda cuts her off, sharp-eyed and soft-faced.

“No, you don’t,” she says.

Berlin glowers, but doesn’t argue. “Well, I sure as hell need something.”

Amanda doesn’t argue. She doesn’t do much of anything, to be honest, and Berlin’s sort of grateful for that. She doesn’t push her to stand up and get back to work, and she doesn’t make a point of reminding her how desperately the town needs a coherent lawkeeper. She just sits there and waits for Berlin to remember those things for herself, like all the time in the world could pass them by and it wouldn’t matter. She’s got one hand on the step to steady herself, and she brings the other up to rest lightly on Berlin’s shoulder, an offer of support and a gesture of encouragement at the same time.

Berlin doesn’t shrug her off, though a part of her wants to, and she doesn’t demand that she leave her alone either. Amanda isn’t like Irisa or Nolan or… well, anyone else in Defiance, really. She’s as close to comfortable as Berlin ever gets, at least lately, and for the most part she genuinely enjoys her company. They complement each other; like Berlin, Amanda is serious when she’s working and precisely the opposite when she’s not. Berlin always knows where she stands with her, always knows exactly which version of herself to put on when they start talking. There’s no pressure, no posturing, nothing; it’s simple, straightforward—

“Jess.”

—and utterly infuriating at times.

Berlin drops her head into her hands. “Not this again.”

“No. Not that again.”

Amanda doesn’t need to ask what she’s thinking about, doesn’t need to mention Irisa’s name or the NeedWant’s or anything at all. That’s another thing Berlin likes about her: the way they never have to spell things out. Her hand tightens just a little on her shoulder, but her eyes are as warm as Berlin’s ever seen them, inviting and gentle and about a dozen other things that Berlin can’t stomach right now.

“What? No _‘curb your appetites, you’re on duty’_? No _‘please don’t kill Nolan’s daughter or I won’t get laid this week’_?”

This time, Amanda doesn’t smile. “None of that, no.”

“What then?”

She sighs, choosing her words carefully. “Look. You’re not alone, all right? You’re not…” Berlin opens her mouth to cut her off, but Amanda doesn’t give her a chance. “I don’t mean you’re not the only one who misses Tommy. You know that part already.”

Berlin does, though knowing it hasn’t made the last seven months any easier. “So what, then?”

“I just mean…” She’s floundering, like pick-me-ups and pep-talks aren’t any easier for her to give than they are for Berlin to receive. It’s almost reassuring, not being the only one lost at sea in this conversation, and especially with someone like Amanda, who makes a show of always being so self-assured. “You have friends here, Jess, and this town is your home too.”

Berlin tries to laugh, but the sound dies like a whimper. “Right.”

“It is,” Amanda insists, ignoring the derision. Her eyes harden to diamond, sharp and beautiful as they study the badge on Berlin’s chest. “You’re the lawkeeper. The people of Defiance depend on you—”

“I know that.” It comes out cracked, brittle, but Amanda ignores that too.

“—but you need to know that _you_ can depend on _us_ too.”

It’s a promise, or as close to one as she ever makes outside the walls of her office. Berlin wishes she could feel touched by that, wishes she could respond to this sweetness with the grace and gratitude that’s expected of her. Instead, she just mumbles “Right,” again, and swallows over the sudden lump in her throat.

Amanda’s still talking. Of course she is; if there’s anything in the world she loves more than the NeedWant, it’s the sound of her own voice.

“Look. I know a lot of people gave you hell for sticking around after the E-Rep left. I know there are certain elements who think I’ve gone soft, letting you run around with that badge on your chest after what your… after what they put us through.” Berlin hasn’t let herself think about that in a very long time, and she really doesn’t appreciate the reminder. Amanda’s hand is still warm, though, and she is so damn good at giving speeches. “But, hey. You’ve proven yourself, okay? Again and again, you’ve proven that you belong here here, and there are a lot of people in this town who’d be at your back in a heartbeat if you needed them to. If you…”

She’s trailing off again, uncertain, and Berlin takes advantage of the moment’s quiet to leap in.

“Great,” she says; her voice sounds as sour as her mouth tastes. “Thanks.”

Amanda winces, lets go of Berlin’s shoulder to massage her own temples. “It’s a two-way street, Jess.”

Berlin knows that already, and she really doesn’t need to hear it again. Besides, as strung out and exhausted and grieving and miserable as she is just now, she couldn’t bring herself to care even if she wanted to. Which, if she’s completely honest, she doesn’t.

Once upon a time, a place like this would have been more of a home than she could ever dream of; not just a place to live, but a place where she was welcome, a place where she was _useful_ , with a roof over her head and food on the table, clothes on her back, surrounded on all sides by people who actually cared. A whole little world full of people she could protect, people she could count on to do the same in turn; it would’ve blown her innocent little mind. _Home_ , yeah, just like Amanda calls it.

But that dream is decades dead. It died when she signed up with the E-Rep, when she found out what it really meant, having a home and a family and people. It died when she had to bury the scared stupid little kid she used to be and forge a new self out of gunmetal and camera lenses, become something that other people could depend on. It was a two-way street then, too, but it was different, a trial by fire where falling apart meant getting good people killed, where you had to be family or you’d end up in an unmarked grave dug in the dead of night. It was nothing like this, a half-dead town scrabbling to keep its head above water, scrambling for power or heat or something to believe in. This town is already halfway in the ground, already well on its way to being buried alive, and Amanda’s pretty words ring hollow and crude when Berlin knows the difference between a family fighting side-by-side and back-to-back and a collection of derelicts and crime lords penned in the same cage while they wait for death.

She wants to say that. Some of it, anyway. Maybe not the cold hard parts; Amanda doesn’t deserve that, and Berlin tries not to be cruel with people who haven’t earned it. She wants her to know some of it, though, wants her to know that this town won’t ever mean the same thing to both of them, that it can’t. For Amanda, Defiance might be home, but to Berlin it’s just a job, and not even a safe one any more. She’s lost count of the number of times her life’s been in danger here, lost count of the number of times she’s been forced to save someone else’s. If she had the strength or the courage for honesty right now, she’d look Amanda in the eye and tell her that she wants out, that she’s scared to death, that Irisa isn’t the only thing she hates.

She doesn’t, though. She doesn’t have the strength, and she definitely doesn’t have the courage. Not with Amanda, no more than she’d have the balls to do what she does to Irisa if she thought for even a second that the Iratient bitch didn’t want it too. She’s a coward, right down to her bones, and she’s never felt it more potently than she does right now, looking at Mayor Rosewater— at _Amanda_ , trying so damn hard to be a friend to someone who gave up on friendship years ago.

_This is shtako_ , she thinks, and her tongue turns thick when she remembers that Amanda agrees.

“I know,” she says aloud, and hates everything.

Amanda squeezes her shoulder again, lets the contact linger. “No-one’s perfect,” she murmurs. “God knows, I’m not. And no-one expects you to be, either. But this…” She shakes her head, and Berlin shuts her eyes because the sympathy hurts. “We need you, Jess. It’s only fair that you get to need us sometimes too.”

The thought turns her stomach, makes her ache for a drink. “I know,” she says again.

“Do you?”

Berlin nods, and tries not to sigh. It’s pretty obvious from the look on Amanda’s face that she’s not going to let this conversation die until she sucks it up and allows a compromise, or at least gives the appearance of one. She’s not after a pledge of fealty or some such old-world bullshtak, but she definitely wants something. Maybe even needs it, in the same way Berlin needs it when Irisa looks at her and mumbles her worthless sorries, in the same way that it makes her mouth water to remember her taste, her scent, the way she moved. It’s really thin, the line between needing and wanting, and sometimes it’s hard to tell one from the other. It’s no coincidence, after all, that the bar-slash-brothel named itself after both.

Amanda isn’t like Berlin, all rough edges and bruised knuckles, hating and hurting and getting off on breaking things. She’s nothing like the worn-out soldier or the lost and lonely kid she was before, and she’s definitely nothing like the worthless coward that can’t really wear either of those roles any more. She’s nothing like her at all, but maybe there’s some kind of familiarity in the ways they’re different, a kind of kindred _something_ in Berlin that calls out to a bleeding heart like Amanda, that inspired her to convince a drunken grieving E-Rep casualty into sticking around in a town with one foot in the grave.

Amanda needs to know that she’s not alone. Maybe it’s enough to know that she’s not the only woman in a position of authority who needs someone else to lean on once in a while, or maybe it really does mean something to her that it’s Berlin specifically, that the washed-up E-Rep trash she pinned her hopes on is worth the tin from that piece-of-shtak lawkeeper’s badge. Whatever the reason, she needs something more than a nod and a smile and a half-hearted shrug. Needs it, wants it, whatever.

The problem is, Berlin’s not sure she can give it to her. Faith, friendship, even empathy. This place has sucked the soul out of her, and it’s about one wrong move away from sucking away the rest of her too, the marrow in her bones and the fire in her veins and whatever’s left in her heart that hasn’t already been ground up and mulched. She’s not sure she can be the kind of person Amanda seems to think she is, the giggling-girlfriend kind, the kind who lives for the dull haze and the quick high, who knows how to stop after just the right number of drinks. Maybe once upon a time she might have stood a shot at growing into that person, but those days died with the rest of her family, and she’s never had the luxury of looking back.

“Yeah,” she says aloud, and wishes she could cut off Amanda’s compassion as effortlessly as she cuts off her own unwanted thoughts. She doesn’t say ‘thank you’, can’t bring herself to sour the air with that lie, but she lets it hang on the air between them, unspoken but implicit, as if it were true.

Amanda smiles. Whether she believes it or not, Berlin can’t tell, but apparently it’s easier to pretend she does than look deeper and realise that she’s offering something that Berlin won’t ever be able to accept.

“Good,” she says, and takes her hand back.

Berlin will never admit to anyone, not even her own reflection, that she finds herself missing it.

*


	3. Chapter 3

*

True to her word, Amanda does have a word with Nolan.

It doesn’t make much of a difference, but that’s no real surprise; the conflict between them has nothing to do with who’s wearing the badge or sitting in the chair, and it can’t be fixed with a quick word from the mayor. Amanda is well-meaning, almost to a fault, but there’s only so much even the mayor can do in the face of Nolan’s ego, Berlin’s fists, and their shared obsession with a certain Irathient murderer.

Still, to his credit, Nolan at least pretends to make the effort when they’re in the office; neither one of them is deluded enough to believe that he would ever respect Berlin as a person, and he doesn’t exactly respect her personal space either, but he at least tries to keep his mouth shut when she’s spouting lawkeeper business. She’s still in charge, and though most of Amanda’s well-intentioned meddling falls on deaf ears, that point at least finally finds the space between them. Nolan might ha’ve worn the badge once, but those days are as far in the past as Berlin’s own sordid history, and the Butcher of Yosemite has no place throwing his weight around in her office.

It’s not much, and it’s not likely to help with the deeper issues between them, but at least it’s something. Berlin has practically forgotten what respect sounds like by this point anyway, so who cares about the rest?

Anyway, there’s no shortage of stuff to do in a shtakhole like Defiance, so most of the time the question of who’s in charge ends up more about semantics than anything else. The power might be back up, and the stasis nets with it, but that doesn’t mean the town’s safe; if Nolan’s yammering is to be believed (dubious at best, Berlin thinks, but she can play nice too and so she doesn’t question it aloud) they’ve got more trouble looming on the horizon. It’s hard to stay focused when they’re all in a room together — Nolan and Irisa on one side of the room, Berlin and Amanda on the other — but it’s a little easier when they’re talking work stuff, and for all his shortcomings Nolan’s pretty good at getting straight to the point.

The general gist is pretty straightforward. Without the E-Rep’s protection, Defiance is vulnerable; that much, of course, they don’t need Nolan to tell them, and Berlin has to bite down on a laugh when Amanda says so to his face, and with a glare that could freeze lava. The part that is new, or at least relatively new, is Nolan’s little conspiracy theory that the Votanis Collective is already on their way to capitalise. If the look on Amanda’s face is anything to go by, he’s run through this with her at least a hundred times already. Berlin, apparently, is still considered expendable enough not to be included in those conversations; she’s expected to just go along with this shtako, nod and smile and say _‘okay’_.

(She does, but only because she wants to prove that she’s better at playing nice than Nolan.)

It doesn’t surprise anyone when he suggests that they scope out the surrounding area for ‘suspicious activity’. He’s always the big mouth behind the bad ideas, the happy cowboy with a hand-cannon and a trigger-happy attitude, so yeah, it’s no surprise at all that he’d sooner rally to take action against an enemy that doesn’t actually exist yet than sit tight and wait to see if there’s even a threat in the first place.

What _is_ surprising is that he’s also the one who names Berlin and Irisa for the job.

He has to know that the suggestion will make waves, has to have expected that they’d all turn around and stare at him like he’s just suggested burning the town to ashes. He has to know that stuff because he’s not a chupping idiot, and though she’ll never say so aloud Berlin can’t help wondering if that’s part of the reason why he suggests it in the first place. Another big drama courtesy of Defiance’s resident cowboy, right? And what better way to show Amanda that he’s taking her seriously? _Show-off_ , she thinks, and stubbornly plays nice.

Whether that really was his plan or not, it sure as hell plays out like it. He points at the weapons locker, tells them to bundle up nice and warm, then stands back and grins his stupid face off.

Irisa looks like she wants to strangle him. Berlin definitely feels the same way, but she knows better that to let it show. If he wants to get a rise out of her, he’ll have to try a whole lot harder. For now, she just rolls her eyes at his posturing and waits for the inevitable catch.

Amanda, meanwhile, goes for the direct approach: she just flat-out says it. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Pretty sure I’ve had worse,” Nolan says, and keeps right on grinning.

Amanda chuckles. “Can’t argue with that.”

The bastard’s grin only widens at that, and Berlin indulges a fantasy of knocking his teeth out. He’s got his eyes on her gun holster, jaw set and square, like he half-expects her to pull out her weapon and start blasting right then and there, like he really thinks she’d do something like that when Amanda’s standing next to her.

(Maybe after she leaves…)

Pleasant as it is, she banishes the thought with a shake of her head, and makes a point of keeping her eyes locked with Irisa’s when she talks to him.

“You’re even crazier than she is.”

He shrugs, but doesn’t deny it. “That the best you got?” he asks, like she’s the one gunning for a fight here. She lets it slide, gritting her teeth and counting to ten inside her head while he rushes on like the caveman he is. “Besides, I want to head back down to the mines. See if I can dig up anything on our new purple friends…”

There’s a weight to his voice when he says that, like he’s not as convinced as Amanda is about the Omec or whatever the hell they are. For once, Berlin’s on his side; call her paranoid or tainted by her E-Rep origins or whatever, but she’s not exactly over the moon about giving carte blanche for erstwhile-unfamiliar alien cannibals to play around in their town. Gulanite or no, it’s not exactly smart planning, is it?

Amanda, naturally, is oblivious to the dig at her diplomacy; she’s rather more focused on Nolan’s present point. “And of course you want me there to hold your hand.”

Nolan tilts his head, a self-deprecating affirmation. “Well, _someone_ has to make a good impression…”

Amanda sighs. “And we both know it’s not going to be you.”

She doesn’t say _‘idiot’_ , but it’s pretty clear that she’s thinking it. For her part, Berlin just offers a noncommittal sort of grunt, as close to approval as she’ll ever allow in Nolan’s presence. Difficult as it is to admit, there’s definitely logic to what he’s saying; Amanda is the one who negotiated with the Omec in the first place, and if they’re going to play nice with anyone, makes sense it’d be her.

“Two birds, one stone,” Nolan’s saying. “Got any more efficient ideas?”

Amanda doesn’t, obviously, but she’s not about to let this go without at least a feint at playing the voice of reason. “Those two, though?” She glances at Berlin, an apologetic ‘no offence’ look crossing her face. Berlin, naturally, pretends she doesn’t see it. “ _Together_?”

“Why not?” He shrugs again, a little heavier this time. “You trust your lawkeeper. I trust my daughter. Nothing else to say, is there? Besides, if we want a clean shot at keeping this town above water…” He doesn’t finish, but of course he doesn’t have to. They all know the situation by this point; reinforcing it for dramatic effect will only serve to piss off everyone in the room. “Well. Gotta let ’em off the leash sooner or later. Dunno about you, but I’d vote for cutting the cord now rather than wait until they’re too busy killing each other to notice that half the town’s depending on them.”

“Practical,” Berlin says aloud, and immediately hates herself for letting it slip.

Nolan shoots her a shtak-eating smirk. “Just don’t give me a reason to regret it.”

*

They part ways for maybe half an hour to make preparations.

Nolan and Amanda go back to the mayor’s office to strategise or talk shop or chup each other on the nearest flat surface, or some combination of all three; Berlin’s halfway tempted to tag along just to make things awkward, but that would be petty, wouldn’t it?

Irisa sits herself down in the lawkeeper’s chair, as bold and smug as anything Berlin’s ever seen, and sets to work sharpening her stupid knives, like they’d be any use at all against Nolan’s imaginary VC invasion. Berlin watches her work for about half a minute, then gets bored and meanders off to the NeedWant for a much-needed drink.

It’s a bad idea, definitely, and Amanda has warned her more than once about drinking on the job, but for her part Berlin fails to see the harm. She’s not nearly as convinced as Nolan that there’s any VC nastiness waiting out there in the first place, and she’ll gladly take the inevitable lecture if the trade-off is lowered inhibitions and the familiar heady haze. Besides, with any luck the right amount of booze will put a nice big pin in that feeling she gets in her belly every time she gets sight of the mark on Irisa’s neck.

She knocks back as much as she can in as short a time as possible, downing about half a bottle in three swallows. It’s nowhere near what she wants, and she knows her limits well enough to know that the meagre buzz will wear off long before they run into anything even remotely threatening. Probably before they even set out, at this rate. She knows that’s for the best, but it still sours her mood a little. She closes her eyes for a lingering moment before she leaves, holds the bottle against her forehead and relishes the condensation seeping into her skin; she steadies her breathing and her thoughts, and tries very hard not to notice the way her hands only ever seem to stay still nowadays when she has a bottle in one and a glass in the other.

They rendezvous at the stasis net. It’s just the two of them, her and Irisa, and Berlin has to bite down on a laugh wondering whether Nolan and Amanda really trust them to get going on their own or whether they’re just busy with other things. It’s a fun thought, and one that softens the lingering dregs of tension.

She’s come prepared. Shotgun strapped to her back, a pistol in her holster and another in her hand; at this point, weighing herself down with artillery is all but second nature. She can’t remember the last time she went anywhere without at least two guns and two pockets full of ammo; in a way, she supposes it’s like the liquor, obsessive and just a little unhealthy, but at least it keeps her breathing. VC or no chupping VC, she won’t get caught unawares. Not again.

Irisa’s not quite so well-prepared. She’s gripping a busted-ass hand-cannon (probably Nolan’s, from the look of it); her fingers are clenching along the grip, and she’s loading and unloading the damn thing again and again in what looks like an endless spasm, like she can’t help herself. She doesn’t look comfortable at all, and if Berlin didn’t know better she’d almost think the little murderer was afraid.

Hilarious, right? This woman single-handedly lay waste to an entire city, to say nothing of what she did to Tommy, but she’s staring down at the gun in her hands like she’s never seen one before, like it’s the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen in her life. Berlin wants to rip it out of her hands and throw it at her head, but she doesn’t. Not yet, at least, not while they’re still in town and there’s a chance of being caught. Later, though… well, who’s to say what a few hours with Irisa out in the middle of nowhere will drive her to do?

For the time being, she forces herself to stay calm. “Problem?”

Irisa doesn’t look up. She just keeps right on doing what she’s doing, loading and unloading, loading and unloading, over and over again until the frustration makes Berlin want to break her fingers.

“No,” Irisa says, and repeats the cycle again.

Berlin grits her teeth. “Really? You could’ve fooled me.” She swallows hard, lets the aftertaste of liquor keep her tone civil. “Look, if there’s a chance it might be broken, just toss it away and go get a better one. I’ll wait.”

Irisa still doesn’t look up. Her face is shrouded in shadows, impenetrable, but there’s no shadow in the world dark enough to hide the way her hands shake. “It’s not broken.”

“Then knock it off.” All that twitching is setting her teeth on edge, quickening her temper until she can scarcely hold it in check. “It’s not a chupping toy.”

“I know that.”

Berlin allows herself to snap just a little, snatching the stupid thing out of Irisa’s hands before she can start up again. It looks fine to her, though she doesn’t exactly study it in close detail. It’s not about whether the thing works or not, anyway; it’s about putting a stop to all that damn fiddling, so she draws the spare pistol ( _her_ spare pistol, dammit) and thrusts that into Irisa’s hands.

“Here,” she mutters, shoving Irisa’s stupid gun into her holster in its place. It doesn’t fit as snugly as her own weapons; the weight’s all wrong, and the balance is off, and that makes feel her uneasy. “Take this. Take whatever the hell you want. Just stop messing around.”

It annoys her, having to do all this; she loves her guns about as much as she loves her vices, and it’s no pleasant task handing one of them over to the last person in the world she’d trust with it. The pistol is everything Irisa’s beat-up old hand-cannon isn’t — sleek, clean, well-looked-after, and _hers_ — but if handing it over will put a stop to all this nonsense it’s a sacrifice worth making.

Not that it does, of course. She probably shouldn’t have expected it to, really, given how much the little bitch delights in pissing her off, but what’s done is done. Down one decent weapon, up one busted-ass antique, and Irisa’s still floundering about like a fish out of water; Berlin throws up her hands and gives the hell up.

Irisa focuses in on the new weapon just as obsessively as she did with the old. She’s breathing kind of heavily, like all that loading-unloading shtako is so exhausting, like they’re already out there, trawling the Badlands or running from the VC or whatever other predators are lurking out there hungry for Irathient meat. She looks like she’s been on the run for days, and the only thing that keeps Berlin from making a less-than-nice remark about it is the certainty that it’ll fall on deaf ears.

 _Idiot_ , she thinks, and squints up at the stasis net. It’s shimmering, bright and blue and dazzling in the winter sun, and the hum and crackle of energy makes her feel a little green. She doesn’t groan aloud, but she doesn’t bother keeping it off her face either, and of course that’s the one chupping thing Irisa decides to notice.

“You’ve been drinking.”

Berlin bites down her tongue to keep from punching something. “I can still do my job,” she says. Irisa shrugs and goes back to playing with the pistol. “Which is more than I can say for you, apparently. It’s _loaded_ , for the love of god.”

Irisa goes right back to ignoring her, of course; it’d be too much to ask for, Berlin supposes, that she’d actually acknowledge a little criticism thrown her way instead of just riding Berlin’s ass for every little decision she’s ever made. She sighs, massaging her temples with her free hand as the infuriating little beast goes back to her twitching and that relentless _click-click-click_ , loading and reloading and loading, again and again and again until Berlin’s at least ninety per cent sure that she’s literally drunk herself to death and landed face-first in Purgatory.

She closes her eyes, counts to ten, and says, “There’s something very wrong with you.”

Irisa frowns down at the gun. “I know,” she says, and loads it again.

*

Blessedly, she stops messing around once they get to work.

She doesn’t have much choice in the matter, really. Berlin doesn’t believe for one second that Nolan’s right about the VC muscling in on Defiance just because the E-Rep shipped out and left the place fallow, but on the off-chance he does have a point it’s kind of really important to hold on to the element of surprise for as long as they can. Irisa’s smart enough to understand that, if nothing else, and once they start moving she makes a concerted effort to keep her restlessness at least mostly silent.

They spread themselves out, always staying within visual range of each other while covering as much ground as they can between them. It’s standard scouting stuff, nothing special; honestly, it’s just common sense to stick close together when they don’t know what’s out there, and while Berlin wouldn’t trust the little murderer with a hailer much less her chupping life still she’s pleasantly surprised by the way Irisa keeps an eye on her blind spots. There’s not much in the way of threat out here, but it’s stupid to pretend that bad things don’t happen anyway, and it’d be even stupider to flat-out invite them. Whatever their personal differences, neither one of them is ready to dig their own graves just yet.

(Give it another half-hour, though, and maybe they’ll both be singing a different tune.)

Irisa keeps her focus on the horizon, jaw pale and eyes misty. For someone who thrives on getting her ass kicked, she looks weirdly ill at ease. Hard to believe this tight-lipped jumpy little thing is the same half-wild murderer who antagonised Berlin into beating her bloody, who got her teeth into her skin and rutted her hips when Berlin did the same; hard to believe this is the same woman who pressed up against her like the world was ending, hips to hips and fists tangled in her hair, that the feral creature who flooded Berlin’s vision with heat and hate is the same pathetic little thing she’s working with now.

It doesn’t make sense. Berlin has seen the kind of work Irisa does, even when she’s not slaughtering ex-lovers or destroying entire cities. She knows what she’s capable of, knows exactly what she can do; even before she had any reason to pay her much attention, back when they were just two people on opposite sides of the same young man, she made a study of the way Irisa moved, made a study of the things she did, the things she liked, of everything she could think of that might get Tommy hot. They haven’t worked together before now, not really, but Berlin knows every line of Irisa’s body as intimately as if they’d been serving together all their lives, and she knows that this isn’t normal.

More than just not normal, though, it’s flat-out ridiculous. They’re in the middle of nowhere, with no real danger to speak of, and even if Nolan’s right about the VC the odds are pretty damn low that they’d run into anything they can’t dispose of with minimal trouble between them. This isn’t even an assault; it’s a damn scouting mission — recon at best, counting numbers at worst — and they both know the weapons are more for show than anything else. Berlin feels naked without a half-dozen firearms strapped about her person, and she’s never seen Irisa without at least that many knives sharpened and ready to lodge themselves between some idiot’s eyes. This stuff is child’s play for both of them, so what’s the chupping problem?

The bigger question, of course, is why the hell does she care? She shouldn’t, she knows, at least not beyond needing to know that Irisa will have her back if she needs it, but that kind of security is far from her mind when she finally gives in.

They’ve been out for maybe an hour when she pulls them to a stop, stomping through half-melted snow and slippery wet grass, and Irisa is about half a twitch away from an aneurism. Honestly, it might not end up so bad for Berlin if she just stood by and let that happen; she’s still indulging fantasies of beating hers brains out with that chupping pistol and leaving her out here to die alone, to hell with her sharp teeth and her hungry eyes, to hell with the mark on her throat and the memory of her hips. It would make a great excuse if she choked to death on her own spit because she couldn’t handle the drama; no blame on Berlin’s shoulders for that, and she’d be down one infuriating Irathient. Everyone wins, right?

So maybe she should be encouraging this shtako after all. The twitching, the discomfort, all of it. It should make her feel vindicated, maybe even powerful, but it doesn’t. It just makes her edgy.

(Well, not _just_ edgy. It makes her feel a few other things as well, but she can’t afford to think about that right now. Not when it’s taking everything she has just to remember how much she hates her.)

She digs her heels into the ground, signals Irisa to come over, and makes a show of rolling her eyes when the little murderer fumbles and drops the stupid pistol. It takes more effort than Berlin would ever admit to keep from closing the space between them, picking it up and shoving it back into her hands, but she stands her ground and lets Irisa recover herself. Needless sentimentality, really; she’d rather be efficient than coddle the little bitch, but she can tell Irisa is uncomfortable enough as it is, and she’d rather not make this conversation even more unpleasant. Besides, the idea of being cruel in ways that don’t leave bruises leaves a sour taste in her mouth, not that she’d ever admit that aloud.

It’s a few awkward moments before Irisa recovers herself, and Berlin doesn’t give her a chance to ask what’s going on. She cuts straight to the chase, quirking an eyebrow and giving the gun a pointed look.

“All right,” she says, voice clipped. “Talk to me.”

Of course Irisa doesn’t. Of course she plays coy. She’s all lip-biting and uneasy glances, looking around at the empty space like she expects an ambush, like there’s some VC asshole smart enough to sneak up on Defiance’s lawkeeper and the murderer who took out an entire city with her brain. Excuses, obviously, and under normal circumstances, Berlin might take advantage of that, use her distractedness as an opportunity to land a swift kick to her head. _‘That’s what you get for not paying attention,’_ she could say, and probably get away with it, but she doesn’t. She just clears her throat and sits down, right there on the ground.

Irisa frowns for a moment, no doubt surprised that the buttoned-up lawkeeper isn’t uncomfortable planting her ass on the wet grass, but she follows suit readily enough. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.” Berlin is getting really damn tired of having to play the reasonable rational adult, and all the more so because that’s about the last thing in the world she actually is. “You and your _twitching_. Whatever’s wrong with you, I want to hear about it.”

That sounds much more empathetic than she’d intended, and Irisa stares at her for a long confused moment. “I’m sorry?”

“You know what I mean,” Berlin snaps, crossing her arms. A little bit unfair, probably, but she doesn’t care; she’d sooner hurt both their feelings by overcompensating than give that particular wrong impression. “I need to know if I can count on you to have my back if we run into anything out here.”

(She doesn’t mention that she’s still unsure about whether or not she’d have Irisa’s back in return; that part goes without saying.)

Irisa swallows hard. She’s looking at her gun again, like she expects the damn thing to explode and kill them both on the spot. Berlin is getting so tired of this crap, the way she stares at it like a live grenade, the way she plays with it like a chupping toy, like there’s nothing in between explosions and children’s playthings. She’s using it like a barrier, a way to keep from looking directly at her when they talk; Berlin’s seen that tactic a thousand times, though never from someone who’s had no trouble meeting her eye before.

Her head is clearer now, sharper with a little distance from the NeedWant and the half-bottle she put away before they left town; she’s as close to sober as she ever gets nowadays, so she can’t exactly blame the liquor for the way the violence takes hold of her again, or for the way it turns her into something dangerous. Irisa is still refusing to look away from her stupid gun, still refusing to look Berlin in the eye like she deserves, and a deep primal instinct that takes hold of her before she has a chance to catch herself and stop it.

She doesn’t remember wrestling the pistol out of Irisa’s hands, but she must have done so, because all of a sudden she has the muzzle pressed against Irisa’s head.

“Talk. To. Me.”

Finally, Irisa meets her gaze. There’s a surprising steadiness in those alien eyes, sad and somber, like she’s been in this exact position a hundred times before. Given the things she’s done, Berlin supposes it’s entirely possible that she has. It hurts to think about that, to remember that she’s not the only one who might want Irisa dead. Countless others, nameless and faceless, but their reasons are just as good as hers.

Irisa moves slowly, deliberately. She has to know that she could call Berlin’s bluff any time she wanted, but she acts like that’s not the case, like this is as serious as Berlin wishes it was. She brings up her arms, palms exposed, and grips Berlin’s forearm. Her fingers are shaking; Berlin can feel the tremors tingling between them, and it’s suddenly very difficult to keep the pistol aimed straight and steady. For a moment, she thinks Irisa’s going to try and wrench the thing out of her hands, turn this into an actual fight, but she doesn’t. She just holds her arm in the same way she held the rest of her back in the lawkeeper’s office, keeping them both locked in place and not letting either one of them back down.

“Go on,” she says. She doesn’t say _‘I dare you’_ or _‘I’m not afraid of you’_ , but Berlin hears it just the same, and she growls. Irisa growls too, a feral Irathient sound that comes from deep in her throat. “Well?”

“You think I won’t?” Berlin counters. “Keep pushing me.”

Irisa squeezes her arm, hard enough that it hurts even through her gloves and Berlin’s jacket. “You know you could get away with it,” she says, matter-of-fact, like they’re talking about the weather. “Pull the trigger, blame it on the VC or raiders, or anyone you like. Nolan would ask questions, but we both know he’s an idiot. He’d believe you in the end. And Amanda…” She shrugs, a different kind of twitch that sends vibrations up and down Berlin’s arm. “She’d probably thank you.”

“So would you,” Berlin shoots back. It’s a moment later that the truth of it hits home, bright and wet like the glint of tears in both their eyes. “You think I’d ever let you off that easy? Give you the satisfaction?” 

“No.” Irisa releases her arm, leans back with a tired sigh. She looks very sad and very tired. “You said it yourself, didn’t you? You’re not like me.”

“No. And you don’t deserve to get put out of your misery. You don’t deserve a free pass out of here while the rest of us have to live with the hell you put us through.”

She’s blinking back tears, stubborn and hot, and she distracts them both by pulling back the pistol and tossing it back. Irisa catches it effortlessly enough, seemingly without thinking, but her hands start to shake as soon as she’s holding it; she stares down at it for a couple of moments, long enough that Berlin worries she’s going to start up the _click-click-click_ again, then gives up and lets the stupid thing fall into her lap.

“Yes,” she says, like an answer to a question nobody ever asked.

Berlin massages her temples. Eyes closed, breathing slow, she tries to find the place in her head that’s still fuzzy, seeks out some lingering shadow of the liquor-softened haze, but it’s gone. She really is sober now, not just close but properly, in a way that leaves her itching under her skin, wishing there was a bar out here. There’s a pulse in her head, a warning thrum that isn’t quite a headache but carries the very real threat of one, and her temper is just barely hanging on by a thread.

When she opens her eyes again, Irisa’s looking at her. The pistol is sitting uselessly in her lap, no good to anyone, and Berlin focuses on that, reminds herself that that’s why they’re stopped.

“You’ve got two choices,” she says, cocking her head at the thing. Irisa fumbles, uncharacteristically clumsy, and wrestles the weapon back into her hands. “You either tell me what the chup is going on, or we go back to town right now and I’ll get Nolan to drag it out of you.”

Irisa blanches a little, and of course Berlin latches right on to that. It feels vindicating, in an almost harmless way, the kind of threat that doesn’t come with bruises or broken bones but with the promise of something simple. It’s been a long time since she dealt with someone young enough (or weird enough) that _‘don’t make me tell your parents about this’_ might actually work, but given her current mood she can’t say she’s not grateful.

“Nolan’s an idiot,” Irisa says, not for the first time. There’s an odd kind of malice in the way she says it this time, though, and Berlin is frankly kind of surprised; from what she’s seen of them, they’re practically joined at the hip. “He thinks he knows everything, but he doesn’t.”

“Sounds like someone else I could name,” Berlin mutters before she can stop herself.

Irisa almost smiles. “Yes,” she says. “You’re an idiot too.”

Berlin punches her for that one. Not especially hard, though that’s more the product of the angle than any kind of restraint; it’s a quick cuff across the side of her face, the kind that says the violence is far from over between them, the kind that promises more if she keeps up with the back-talk.

“Shut up,” she warns. “And stop wasting my time. Talk to me, or we’ll both be talking to Nolan.”

Irisa lets the gun fall again — it hits the ground this time — and pulls her legs up, hugging her knees to her chest. She looks incredibly small all of a sudden, like she really is the sort of child who’d be terrified by threats of parental intervention. Looking at her now, it’s almost impossible to believe that this is the same harbinger of destruction that blew up New York and killed Tommy in cold blood. It’s hard to believe a lot of things she knows are true, but if there’s one thing Berlin knows better than most, it’s that appearances can be deceiving. Irisa can look as small and innocent as she wants, but that won’t change the things she’s done. It won’t paper over the void in Berlin’s heart, and it won’t give those countless nameless others their loved ones back; Irisa doesn’t deserve her sympathy, and she won’t get it, but far more than that, she doesn’t deserve to go easy on herself.

She’s about to snap her fingers and order the little bitch to hurry up, but Irisa beats her to it, blurting out in a strangled, suffocated rush, “You don’t know what it’s like.”

Berlin’s laugh is strangled too. “How’d you figure that?”

Irisa takes a deep breath. “You’re a soldier,” she says, voice so low and so tender that Berlin can tell she’s thinking of Nolan too. “You and him. You think you know what it’s like to kill people, to hurt people. You think you’ve seen it all, but you haven’t. You kill for the greater good, to keep people safe, or protect them, or protect yourself. You do it because they’ll do it to you if you don’t.”

Berlin swallows hard. No-one in Defiance knows much about her earlier career, the years before she made herself known as the E-Rep’s pet spin doctor, the queen of propaganda hiding behind her video camera and her sharp tongue. They know a little, of course, and Nolan more than most, but they don’t talk about it. Maybe they don’t want to think about the kinds of stories she could spin if they turned her precious cameras back on her, the footage she could cut together from the years before.

It’s strange hearing about it from Irisa of all people. The one person she’d never expect to know anything, or to care enough to ask, but here she is drawing lines between this woman she hates and the man she loves more than anything else in the world. For about half a second it makes Berlin feel inadequate, and then immediately after it makes her so furious she can scarcely see straight.

“What’s your damn point?” she grits out.

Irisa presses her forehead to her knees. “That’s not me,” she manages after a moment. “What I did… there’s no greater good. I didn’t keep those people safe, or protect them. I just…” Her whole body shakes, a tremor that kicks Berlin right in the throat. They’re both choking on their tears now, not just blinking them back. “I can’t come back from that. I can’t undo it. I… I wish I could. I wish I could take it back or make it so it never happened. But I can’t.”

Berlin clenches her jaw. The words lance through her, arcing like a blade between her ribs, into the place where she can’t forget Tommy, and she doesn’t know whether she wants to punch Irisa in the face until she can’t say any more or turn around and run away until the pain can’t possibly catch up. Neither seems likely at the moment, so she makes do with what she has.

“Live with it,” she says, voice razor-rough. “ _We_ have to.”

“I know,” Irisa says to her knees, like that’s any consolation at all. “And I do too. But this…” She fumbles with the edge of her foot, finds the pistol by sheer dumb luck and kicks it back towards Berlin. “I can’t. Every time someone puts a gun in my hands, I see their faces… I see _Tommy’s_ face…”

“And how the hell do you think I feel?” It’s not a question, it’s an explosion, violence pouring out from her heart through her mouth. “What the hell do you think I see when I look at you?”

Irisa shakes her head. Her whole body is shaking now, like she’s sobbing without tears. Berlin wants to grab her face and get a good look at her, but a part of her is almost afraid of what she’ll find, almost afraid to see what Irisa really looks like when she’s hurt and breaking like this. Might look too much like a mirror, she thinks, and feels nauseous.

“It wasn’t me,” Irisa mumbles. “It was the machine. I know that. I do.”

“I don’t,” Berlin says, more to herself than Irisa.

It’s only partway true. She understands the complexities of what happens, and if she’s really soul-shatteringly honest with herself, she knows that Irisa didn’t have nearly as much autonomy as she likes to believe. She knows that, at least as much as she’s willing to, but she can’t accept it. She won’t allow that excuse to turn into an explanation, to cut through the chaos and the clamour, the hurt and the hate that burns in her lungs every time she sees Irisa’s face. She won’t let some stupid Ark-brain take that away from her.

Irisa’s still talking, oblivious. “It wasn’t me,” she says again. “But I’m still the one who did it. It wasn’t me, but it _was_ me. Whoever… whatever was in control, I was still the one who…” Her voice cracks, a real sob she doesn’t bother trying to hide. “And I can’t… I can’t keep seeing their faces… I can’t… I…” She lashes out, drives her fist into the ground, impotent and pathetic. “I can’t!”

Berlin feels her blood boil. It should be comforting, she supposes, in a messed up sort of way. At the very least, it should taste like hubris. The cold-blooded killer who can’t even pick up a weapon any more; hilarious, right? It should bring her some measure of satisfaction, some kind of peace in knowing that she won’t start killing again. But it doesn’t. Irisa has violence inside her too, a kind that’s not very far from Berlin’s own, and it makes her angrier than she could have anticipated to see Irisa deny it like this, to watch her turn away from what she’s done and who she is, from the pain she’s caused and the people she’s hurt. Like it’s so easy to pretend she didn’t kill anyone if she just tries not to think about it and never picks up a gun.

“We don’t get that luxury,” Berlin says aloud, picking up the pistol and reloading it.

Irisa frowns. “I—”

“Shut up.” Berlin has no intention of letting her talk now, no intention of letting her get away with this self-pitying shtako. “You ever think that those people in New York might’ve had families? Loved ones? People who cared about them?” She grabs Irisa by the back of the neck, hauls her back to her feet and shoves the weapon into her hands. “You think you’re the only one who sees their faces? You think you’re the only one who sees _Tommy’s_?”

“No.”

“Good. Because you’re not.” Her hands are like iron, tight and lethal as she grips Irisa’s knuckles, presses her fingers over the grip, the trigger. “Every day walking down the streets in that worthless shtakhole you call a town. Every minute I’m sitting there in that pathetic excuse for an office, I’m waiting for him to walk through the door. Every time I hear anything, I look up and I catch my breath and I wait for him to show up with that stupid-ass grin of his… and then I remember that’s never going to happen again.”

“I—”

“Yeah, _you_.” She’s spitting the words, violence like poison bubbling on her lips. “ _You_ took him from me. _You_ took those New Yorkers away from the people who love them. We see their faces every minute of every hour of every chupping day, and we don’t get to shut it off by putting our guns down.” She clenches her fist over Irisa’s, and relishes it when the pain makes Irisa cry out. “We don’t get to close our eyes and cover our ears and say _‘I can’t do this’_. So why the hell should you?”

Irisa’s face is deathly pale, streaked with tears. “It was the machine,” she whispers, like she’s trying just as hard to convince herself as Berlin, like she stands any chance of convincing either one of them. “Ark-brain, whatever you want to call it. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“No.” Berlin’s fingers hurt, but she doesn’t let go. She won’t make this easy, not for either of them. “You think some stupid Ark-brain was the last thing Tommy saw before he died? Because I sure don’t.” She doesn’t need to say the words, but she does it anyway because she wants this to hurt; she wants it to _really_ hurt, and not just Irisa. “I think the last thing he saw was your chupping face.”

Irisa knows it’s true; Berlin can see the weight of it crushing down on her face. Machine or no damn machine, she was the one who pulled the knife, just like she was the one who dropped an Ark on a whole damn city. She did all of it, and she can blame machines or Ark-brain or whatever else, but that’s something she has to live with. For her part, Berlin hopes it’s a slow and excruciatingly painful life.

She’s agonised over this too. Run it over and over in her head, rationalised it to the point of pain. Because, yeah, this kind of shtako doesn’t happen to normal people. It doesn’t happen to _good_ people. Tommy was a good guy, a good person; he was good in every possible way, good in a way that Irisa — hell, Berlin — can’t even imagine. A good person, the best person, he’d never drop an Ark on a damn city. And he sure as shtak wouldn’t put a knife through the heart of the woman he—

 _No_.

No, she can’t think about that, _won’t_ think about it. She won’t flatter the little bitch by acknowledging that maybe he loved her too.

Irisa’s stumbling over her apologies again, ignoring the pain stamped on Berlin’s face. “ _I’m sorry_ ,” choked out over half-hidden tears, again and again and again until Berlin wants to snap her neck just to silence her.

She doesn’t, though, and not just because it would be crossing a line. She doesn’t because at least Irisa’s making the effort; her apologies might mean less than nothing, might be a spit in the face of everything Berlin and the others have gone through at her hands, but at least they’re there. She could wrap that Ark-brain shtako around herself like a security blanket if she wanted to, let Nolan and his delusions shelter her and keep her safe, protect her from all the other stuff, the bad stuff. She could hide behind it, but she doesn’t. Or, well, she does, but only when it counts. The rest of the time she’s like this, snivelling and simpering and saying sorry.

It’s accepting the crap she’s done, or at least a step towards it, and that’s something that Nolan and his cock-eyed optimism can’t deal with. He wants to coddle his precious daughter; hell, he wants to _be_ that stupid security blanket, the thing that keeps the imagined lynch mob at bay, and to hell with the fact that they lit their torches for a damn good reason. He wants so badly for the whole damn world to see Irisa the way he does, and he doesn’t understand that pretending she wasn’t responsible might not be the best thing for anyone.

For all her faults — and, yeah, there’s a lot of them — Irisa at least seems aware of that. Masochistic, self-flagellatory, whatever you want to call it, the responsibility is hers and so too is the guilt. Amanda was right about that, if not much else; Irisa hates herself for what she did, at least as much as Berlin does. And maybe that’s another reason why she keeps coming to her, why they keep clashing like this, with violence and hate and hurt. Because Nolan lets slide too much of the stuff that matters, and Irisa needs someone who won’t, someone who refuses to forget, and refuses to let her forget as well.

Slowly, reluctantly, she lets go of Irisa’s hand. Irisa’s fingers flinch and flex, but she doesn’t drop the gun. Berlin nods her approval, then turns away before she can see too much of it.

“I don’t care about your guilt,” she says, not for the first time. “I don’t care what you see or how you feel when you’re holding that thing. You hold it anyway.” Irisa opens her mouth to protest, as Berlin knew she would, and she cuts her off with a glare. “No. We’ve got a job to do out here. You don’t think you can do it, you turn around and go crawling back to Daddy Nolan with your tail between your legs.”

Irisa straightens her shoulders. Berlin knew that she’d do that too. “I don’t want that.”

“Didn’t think so.” She didn’t care, either, but it’s probably for the best not to mention that right now. “So, then, you hold that thing. And if we get in trouble, you use it.” She doesn’t mention the part of her that can’t wait, that wants Irisa to fall apart completely, that wants a front-row seat to the moment she loses it and can’t find her way back. “Understood?”

(It takes everything she has not to add _‘soldier’_ to the end of that, and she doesn’t want to think about what that means.)

“I…” Irisa’s still shaking, but she doesn’t drop the gun; it’s not much, but it’s something. “Understood.”

“Good girl.” Berlin turns to study the horizon, counting out the klicks. “Keep it up, and maybe I’ll rough you up again later.” She twists her mouth into a cool sneer. “I know how much you like that.”

Irisa flushes, but she doesn’t deny it, and the gun stays steady in her hands. Berlin takes that as a victory.

*

Obviously, it’s only a matter of time before they do run into trouble.

Real trouble, that is, the kind that’s caused by something other than Irisa’s guilty conscience or Berlin’s violent temper. It’s not VC, either, which frankly puts them a few steps up from what Berlin was anticipating by this point. Trouble, yeah, but at least she won’t have to go home to Defiance with her tail between her legs apologising to the stubble-faced caveman for ever doubting him.

They’re starting to grate on each other’s nerves when it happens. They’ve been spreading out further and further over the last half-hour or so, and Berlin’s finding herself watching Irisa a whole lot more than the horizon. It’s three different flavours of dangerous, and they should both know better than to let themselves get distracted out in the field like this; to be completely honest, it’s sheer dumb luck than when the sound does catch their ears it’s from far enough away to give them a heads-up.

It’s a shriek, too garbled to immediately tell whether or not it’s human, but Berlin supposes it doesn’t really matter either way; in a situation like this there’s no time to weigh up the possibilities, and she has no intention of being anyone’s next meal. She hones in on the noise, reflexes sharp and keen, but it’s Irisa who moves first.

That’s something of a surprise; after their talk, Berlin halfway expected her to just turn tail and run at the first sign of anything like this. Instead, she’s the one scrambling to catch up, almost staggering over the uneven ground as Irisa powers forwards as sure-footed and steady as if they were strolling down the street. She’s focused, features a mask of intensity, and for once she’s not shaking at all; she almost looks like she’d be willing to use the weapon. Berlin won’t lie: she’d pay good scrip to see that.

“Doesn’t sound like VC.” She keeps her voice low, ears straining at the sounds; they’re sharp and feral, coming from maybe a few hundred meters away. “Raiders?”

Irisa shakes her head. “Something else,” she says, and her tone makes it very clear that she has an idea of what.

Berlin allows her a moment to offer more, then rolls her eyes when she doesn’t take it. “Care to elaborate on that?”

“Not Votan,” Irisa says, like Berlin couldn’t have figured that out for herself. “Or human.” She grunts, a half-breathless sound, and picks up the pace. “Hellbugs, probably.”

Berlin groans. It’s a far cry from the VC assault Nolan pictured when he sent them out here, but to tell the truth she would’ve probably been happier if it was, even with the inevitable _‘I told you so’_. Even the worst elements of the VC are people, at least by some definition of the word; stupid people, without a doubt, but people just the same. Deluded Castithans and unwashed Irathients, idiots with inflated egos who think they know better than the rest of the world. Idiots, she can reason with, or at least pretend to reason with in the half-second before she blasts them between the eyes; kicking some wannabe dictator’s ass is frankly the best kind of work she could imagine just now, and if she’s completely honest there was maybe a little part of her that was hoping for an army of Irathient assholes to put into the ground.

(And if they happened to resemble her present Irathient company? Well, that would just make it her lucky day, wouldn’t it?)

Hellbugs, though? Not so much. Not at all, actually. Hellbugs aren’t people, and even six feet deep into her cups Berlin could never mistake them for one. They don’t talk, don’t reason, don’t do anything at all; they just tear apart anything that gets in their way and eat whatever’s left. The name says it all, really: they’re chupping bugs. Great big mean bastard-sized bugs, but bugs nonetheless. And Berlin _really_ hates bugs.

She sticks close to Irisa, maybe a couple of paces behind, and makes a point of telling herself she’s letting the murdering bitch lead because Irathients are better trackers and not because she hates bugs. They’ve both had more than their share of encounters with the little bastards, and they both know it’s not pleasant; frankly, if Irisa wants to work out her weapon issues on a big shrieking ball of legs, she can go right ahead. That’s one murder Berlin would happily get behind.

With Irisa leading, they find the damn things entirely too soon. There’s maybe half a dozen of them, three or four running about and a couple standing over the still-moving remains of whatever they’ve been hunting. Berlin’s stomach lurches; she desperately hopes the poor bastard isn’t human, but she knows better than to expect a happy ending on that front. She’s seen it too many times before, idiots who think they’re tougher than the world outside their towns and cities, and most of the time there’s not enough left to fill a shoebox by the time the E-Rep finds them. Still, she supposes, better hellbugs than raiders; getting eaten half-alive is damn near merciful next to what those bloodthirsty assholes would do.

Shtako like this… honestly, it’s one of the few things she’s happy to have left behind.

Well. _Was_ happy, she supposes. The past tense sticks in her throat, but the truth is entirely too present to ignore; apparently, even small-town lawkeepers have to get their hands dirty every now and then. _Go figure_. She allows herself the luxury of a grimace, squeezes her eyes shut for a breath or two, enough to fortify her composure, and hopes against hope that it won’t be too gruesome.

The hoping is futile, of course; she already knows it will be. She doesn’t need to get any closer to know that. It always is.

It’s probably a little over-zealous, too, to hold out hope that Irisa will listen to reason here, that she’ll recognise a lost cause when she sees one and agree to a graceful retreat. Futile, almost definitely, but Berlin tries it anyway because she’s in no mood to play bug-bomb out here in the middle of nowhere just because some delusional murderer wants to work through her guilt.

She keeps her expression neutral, or as neutral as she can keep any part of her while she’s watching giant bug monsters chew up someone’s torso, and takes a slow, pointed step backwards.

“Nothing we can do here,” she says; it’s a mark of authority, a less than subtle reminder that she’s still in charge here. “Whoever that was, he’s dead now.” _And Amanda doesn’t pay me nearly enough to deal with this shtako._ “I say we leave them to it. Someone deserves a good meal, at least.”

Irisa cocks her head to the side, like she’s thinking; for about half a second Berlin almost imagines that she might actually follow orders for once. Half a second, no more, because of course she doesn’t move. Couldn’t get here fast enough, but now Berlin’s the one calling the shots she’s rooted to the spot like a spectator at a blood sport.

Berlin clears her throat, even more pointedly, and takes another step back. Nothing from Irisa; she just stands there staring at the stupid hellbugs and their stupid dinner. Berlin swallows back a sigh, because she really should have seen this coming, really should have just insisted that they run in the opposite direction the instant they first heard the damn noise. It’s reaching the point of absurdity now, the lengths Irisa will go to piss her off. _Whatever_ , Berlin thinks viciously. She’s not above dragging the little bitch home by the scruff of the neck if that is what’s necessary.

“That means now,” she says. “Not tomorrow. We leave them to it, _now_.”

Irisa ignores her. Thumb on the hammer, finger on the trigger, and Berlin might almost be afraid she’s going to do something stupid if she didn’t see the sweat beading above her lip.

 _Fine,_ she thinks. _Scruff of the neck, then_. She lunges forward again, powered by anger, and raises a fist right in front of Irisa’s stupid face. This is definitely not the place for violence, but there’s nothing wrong with a show of force if it’s needed, and by this point Berlin can’t help thinking that she’s pretty much just saving the deluded lunatic from herself. It’s suicide, messing with hellbugs for no reason, and it’s not like there’s enough of their victim left that’s worth saving anyway. Sticking around is a waste of time, resources, and energy. More importantly, it risks being a waste of both their lives as well, and that is something Berlin will not allow.

“ _Now_ ,” she hisses again.

At long last, Irisa turns to look at her. She’s moving like a slug in quicksand, like they have all the time in the chupping world, and it makes Berlin’s fists tighten until her nails bite into her palms. The look on her face says it all, just like Berlin knew it would, those kicked-puppy eyes, the quivering lip and the helpless hopefulness that she probably picked up from her do-gooder cowboy of a father. Nolan wouldn’t walk away from this either, Berlin knows; dead or not, he’d insist that the unfortunate idiot deserves a proper funeral or some such old-world shtako, and apparently he’s passed on some of that messed-up morality to his slaughterhouse of a daughter.

“No,” she snaps, cutting off the flood before it starts. “ _No_. I am not— _we_ are not risking our chupping lives for some idiot who’s already dead. Do you hear me? We are _not_ doing that.”

Irisa studies her for a very long moment. Berlin can almost see the wheels turning inside her head, can see her weighing out the pros and cons of fighting on this, the chance of actually having any success. If she’d thought for a second she might listen, Berlin would have pointed out that those odds were less than zero, but what would be the point? They both know perfectly well that Irisa doesn’t listen to anyone.

“I’m doing that,” Irisa murmurs after a beat, like that’s an end to it.

Berlin grabs her by the collar. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she says. “If anyone’s going to rip you apart, it’s going to be me. Not some stinking hellbugs.” It comes off a whole lot more compassionate than she intended it to, so she hardens her voice and tries again. “And if you think for one second that I’m going to let you waltz in there and get yourself killed for some idiot who probably deserved what he got, you’re even crazier than I thought.” She gives Irisa’s shirt a yank. “Now, get moving.”

Irisa pulls away, seemingly with no effort at all. Her jaw’s set, expression just as hard as Berlin’s; she’ll take this to a fist-fight if she has to, Berlin can tell, without hesitation. Berlin halfway hopes that she does; it’d be nice, not being the one to start it for once.

“No,” Irisa says, voice thick. “I’m not leaving.”

“He’s already dead!” Berlin bites down hard in the inside of her cheek to keep from raising her voice. That would bring the hellbugs running in a heartbeat, and she won’t give Irisa the satisfaction of getting what she wants that way. “Whatever it is you think you’re doing, you’re not. Okay? That bastard is already dead, or he will be long before we get to him. We’re not saving him. It’s not going to happen.”

“I—”

“ _No_.” It sounds so violent when she says it, so different to Irisa’s passionate pleas. “You want to prove something, fine. But this won’t prove anything except that you’re stupid. Which we both already know.”

Irisa shakes her head. She’s watching the hellbugs circle the corpse, eyes hard and cloudy. “He has family too,” she says, very quietly. “They deserve to bury him. They deserve… they deserve to know.”

“I don’t care.” It’s true, loathe as she is to admit it, and she doesn’t care either that it probably means she’s a horrible heartless person. “It’s not worth it. He’ll be nothing but bones and guts by the time we get there, and that’s assuming we live long enough to ID him the first place.” She lets go of Irisa’s collar, but doesn’t soften. “Answer’s still no. We’re leaving, now.”

“Berlin.”

“I said…”

But the words die in her throat, choked off and suffocated, as she looks Irisa in the eye. Stupid, she knows, but she’d meant for it to work in her favour, had meant for Irisa to see how damn serious she is, to know beyond any shadow of doubt that she’s not backing down. She meant it that way, yeah, but she wasn’t prepared for the things she finds when Irisa meets her gaze.

It’s like that old bullshtak about the eyes being windows to the soul or whatever; Irisa’s are so open, so aching and broken, and the desperation and sorrow Berlin finds there drive all thoughts of hellbugs from her mind; it replaces them, too, with things she doesn’t want to think about, with memories of Tommy’s face and the way he always seemed to shine when he thought he was doing something right, something _good_. His whole self would light up, and the world would glow around him, turn the dark colours soft and sweet, turn the dark thoughts to something tender. He lit up everything when he got like that, and for just a moment or two it made her feel like she might be glowing too.

She hates that. Hates that she can see Tommy in Irisa of all people, hates that it’s his eyes she sees behind Irisa’s, hates that it’s his voice she’s hearing, his stupid idealised visions of right and good. She hates how weak she is, hates how easily manipulated. Most of all, more than anything else, she hates the fact that for about half a second she’s so busy hating those things that she forgot to hate Irisa.

Irisa sees her softening, and of course she knows exactly what it means. The sorrow in her face shifts to something else, something like hope; it steals Berlin’s breath and makes her hurt just as deeply.

“Berlin, _please_.”

She’s won. She’s won, and she knows it. Berlin snarls the kind of curses that would make even Nolan blush. She’s not exactly a gracious loser, but that doesn’t really matter when Irisa’s glowing too, face lit up like a damn stasis net, like Tommy’s always did. It makes Berlin want to do unspeakable things, and maybe a handful of not-so-unspeakable things. It almost, _almost_ makes her want to believe this isn’t a bad idea.

“I hate you,” she says. “I _really_ hate you.”

Irisa clenches her teeth, but it doesn’t hide the smile. “I know you do.”

*


	4. Chapter 4

*

They charge hard and fast, making as much noise as they can.

Berlin leads, because she always leads, because she’s never comfortable unless she’s right there on the front lines. This is nothing like the military precision she’s used to — the Earth Republic was nothing if not calculated in everything it did — but she makes the most of what she’s got. Besides, hellbugs aren’t like Votans; a perfectly-executed stratagem won’t scatter them half as well as a really loud bang. No sense missing something that wouldn’t work, she supposes, and rolls with what she knows will, charging in with her gun cocked and yelling her voice raw. Why the hell not? It’s as good an outlet as any for all that impotent rage, and if it spooks the little bastards, all the better.

When she shoots, she shoots to to kill; no sense in warning shots when your target doesn’t have a brain, after all, and like always her aim is true. It’s been a while since she put it into practice like this, the chaos and the clamour of an in-the-field encounter, shooting bullets instead of footage, but aiming a pistol isn’t all that different from aiming a camera lens, and she’s always been good at adapting. She picks off a couple of the wandering bugs in less than the time it takes for Irisa to make it to her side; a hammering heartbeat and half a magazine, and that’s half of their number down already. Not bad, if she says so herself.

It’s hard not to let herself get distracted, though, especially once Irisa starts pressing against her side; she’s too close, touching, and Berlin can feel her body trembling even through the layers of their clothing. It’s not the good kind of distracting either, the kind that comes with one or the other being thrown up against the wall or thrown down to the ground; it’s the kind of distracting they can’t afford, the kind that throws her off-balance, twitches the gun in her hands and sends her next shot veering off to the right.

She snarls a curse, and doesn’t so much as glance at Irisa. That would be another distraction, and one she definitely can’t afford. “Help, or get out of my way,” she mutters instead, making it very clear that it’s not a suggestion.

Irisa tries. That’s something, Berlin supposes, though given that this was her idea in the first place it’s not exactly much. She’s standing there like someone’s taken a charge-blade to her spine, stuttering and fumbling and useless, and if she could spare the time or the hands Berlin would be shaking the life out of her right now. Stupid, she supposes, to expect that Irisa would do anything more than get in her way, and stupider still to expect that she might actually have been telling the truth when she agreed to have Berlin’s back if she needed it.

She doesn’t, of course, and Berlin’s an idiot for ever thinking that she might. Forget their differences, forget the fact that neither of them would shed any tears to see the other six feet underground, forget everything that’s personal and problematic between them; fact is, Irisa’s just not reliable. She’s got the gun in her hand, loaded and locked on, textbook stuff in theory but in practice there’s no goddamn follow-through. The hellbugs have them in their sights now, justifiably angered by the death of their friends, and of course it’s too much to hope that Irisa could manage anything more than holding the damn thing and looking like an idiot.

“Shtak,” she’s mumbling to herself. Her voice is a tremor, weak and shaking just like the rest of her. “Shtak, shtak, shtak, _shtak_ …”

Berlin swears again as her magazine empties. She doesn’t have time for this, and she’s as angry with herself for not being prepared as she is with Irisa for letting it happen in the first place. She’s the level-headed one, after all, the one with combat experience and a soldier’s rank to back it up, and a mouthful of booze two hours ago isn’t enough to justify her throwing all that stuff out the damn window for someone she knew perfectly well couldn’t be trusted. A sad look and a whimpering _‘please’_ , and apparently she’s putty in Irisa’s hand. Just like Tommy, and just look at where it got him.

“Idiot,” she hisses, reloading with military speed; she’s not really sure which one of them she’s talking to at this point, and she doesn’t much care. “Make yourself useful.”

Irisa doesn’t. She doesn’t move at all, though she does stop mumbling. Berlin cuts a quick glance at her, assessing just how much trouble they’re in, and hates the gut-punch emotion that hits her at the sight. Irisa’s face is a mask of despair, grief and terror and the kind of trauma that even Berlin, with all her experience in that field, could scarcely dream about; looking at her now, it’s all too easy to believe the weight of her earlier breakdown, easy to imagine that she really is seeing every face she’s ever killed. Just standing there, choked-up and frozen, and she looks like she’s facing down a firing squad.

Berlin knows what that feels like. A little too well, in fact, and it makes it real hard to take the kind of sick pleasure she knows she should. She’d deserve it, after all, which is a hell of a lot more than Berlin could say about herself the last time she faced one.

Can’t think about that, though. Even if they weren’t under attack, even if she didn’t need every nerve in her body to focus on the chupping hellbugs, she couldn’t let herself go down that road. There’s just too much of it. Too much of her own pain, too much of Irisa’s, too much of everything. Berlin has never shied away from her own unsavoury traits, but this is a bridge too far even for her; it’d take a stronger stomach than hers to deal with even a fraction of this right now, and the look on Irisa’s face just makes her think of Amanda, of the sad look on her face when she said that Irisa’s already punished herself more brutally than Berlin ever could.

There’ll be time enough to dwell on that later, though, assuming they survive this shtako in the first place. For the time being, they have a more pressing issue: hellbugs, and the dozens of teeth that go with them.

Berlin holds their ground by herself. She doesn’t have much choice in the matter, really; Irisa is all but useless, and Berlin will be damned to hell and back again before she lets herself get killed for someone else’s mistake. She empties her pistol, then switches to the shotgun on her back, stumbling backwards as she takes aim and fires. It’s excruciatingly slow after the quick-and-messy simplicity of a handgun, but needs must and she’d sooner trust one of her own weapons than the piece-of-shtak hand-cannon she took from Irisa. Still, reliable as it is, the shotgun raises its own set of problems, and against the fast-skittering hellbugs it feels like shooting through water.

It doesn’t help either that the remaining hellbugs are coming in hot and hard; Berlin’s taken out the stragglers by herself, keen aim and the upper hand keeping her steady through even Irisa’s distracting twitches, but the remaining two are big and mean and seriously pissed. There’s no chance in hell that they’ll hold still long enough for her to to get a half-decent angle with the shotgun, so she gives up entirely; no sense in bashing your head against the wall for no reason, right? She tosses the thing to the ground with a yell of frustration (not too bright, probably, but the bugs aren’t the only ones blind with rage), and scrambles for a backup plan.

Now would be a really great moment for Irisa to get over herself, to come swooping in with a last-minute heroic flourish; Berlin might even forgive her prior histrionics for the payoff of actually being still alive at the end of it. A moment’s glance in her direction makes it real clear that that’s not going to happen, though, and it takes everything she has not to howl her frustration. Berlin has stumbled back about twenty paces, maybe a bit more, but Irisa is still frozen where she stood before, mouth open and eyes bulging, completely helpless as the hellbugs close in.

Berlin can’t express in words how tempting it is to just let the bastards eat her.

It’d be a fitting end, at least; it’s all well and good, wanting to do the right thing, but actually being there is a whole other issue, and it would be just the right combination of irony and hubris if her damned good intentions brought her to a messy end. Unfortunately, it would also be down to Berlin to haul her remains back to Defiance and explain the whole sordid affair to Nolan, and frankly she’d sooner be the one eaten alive than have to deal with that. She’s not about to let Irisa torture her even in death, which means there’s only one thing for it. Only one thing that won’t end in awful messy death for both of them, anyway.

She takes a deep breath, curses Irisa’s name (and Nolan’s, for good measure), and breaks into a run.

The ground is wet and uneven; her boots slip and slide, but that doesn’t stop her from getting the job done. She slams into Irisa as hard as she can, knocking the air from both their lungs as they hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and multi-lingual swearing.

The snow is freezing, soaking through the grass; icy water seeps in through both their clothes, chilling the skin, and the shock sensations bring Irisa somewhat back to life; she’s wriggling and squirming underneath her, struggling to regain her footing, but Berlin doesn’t let her up. She can’t afford the distraction, not this time, and she has bigger things to deal with right now. She holds Irisa down, and if there’s a hint of hate-fuelled pettiness in the way she shoves her face into the snow-slushed mud, neither of them will ever mention it. In any case, it works well enough; Irisa goes still beneath her, and Berlin fumbles between their bodies for her pistol.

Irisa mumbles something into the dirt, probably another apology, or something equally pointless. Doesn’t matter, whatever it is; Berlin drives her elbow into the back of her head to shut her up. The satisfying _crack_ of bone-on-bone bolsters her focus, and she turns back to the task at hand. No time for thinking, no time for strategising; she just takes aim with the pistol and fires, fires, _fires_.

The first one goes down easily enough. It’s bigger than the other, and not nearly so quick; gorged on whatever — _whoever_ — it was eating, it moves sluggishly, and gives Berlin an opening to get it in her sights. She fills it fast, but there’s no time to revel in her talent when it hits the ground; she wants to, for sure, but there’s still one more of the bastards to deal with and she’s learned too many times the price to be paid for getting cocky before the fighting is done.

The last one is smaller, and much faster; it’s already on top of them before Berlin has a chance to reload the chupping pistol, and she damn near has a heart attack when she lifts her head and finds a hundred pointy teeth right in her face.

No time to bother with the ammo, then. Fair enough; it’s served her well enough until now. Still no time for thinking, so she doesn’t; she just uses what she has. Crude and messy as it is, she slams the butt of the pistol into its stupid toothy face, howling just as loudly as the bug does when it connects. It’s not exactly graceful, but it’s the best she’s got under the circumstances, and it stuns the thing well enough.

She thinks of Irisa, of Tommy, of all the ways she always ends up fixing the little bitch’s messes, all the ways she ends up hurting for precious Irisa’s stupid mistakes. Irisa’s the one slaughtering people, turning cities and people to smoke and ashes, but Berlin’s the one who bent and broke, who’s drunk herself into stupor after stupor for the sake of Irisa’s sins. She’s still there pressed between Berlin’s body and the dirt below; she’s shifting a bit but not struggling, and Berlin wants nothing more than to let her suffocate down there. To hell with hellbugs, she thinks; Irisa’s the real menace.

Honestly, it’s just sheer dumb luck that from this angle the hellbug is an easier target.

All that hate pours out of her, bitterness and resentment turned to poison and violence. She’s shrieking almost as loudly as the bug as she slams the weapon into its face again and again and again, as she surges forwards to meet it head-on, tossing the gun to the side when she gets in close enough and lashing out with her limbs instead, punching and kicking and using every part of her she has, alive and lit up with all the things she’s not allowed to do to Irisa. The hellbug couldn’t look any less like an Irathient if it tried, but all Berlin can see is Irisa’s face in the middle of its gaping, slavering mouth, and when she beats the life out of the damn thing, relishing the shrieks and gurgles as it chokes on its own rancid blood, all she can think is _it should’ve been her._

Maybe later she’ll let herself wonder how many others can claim to have killed a hellbug with their bare hands and the power of their hatred. Maybe in a week or a month or a decade she’ll be telling this story in the NeedWant, relishing the ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s and free drinks from the awestruck crowd. Maybe she’ll carve out a new nickname for herself, _slayer_ or _iron fist_ or something suitably bloodthirsty, a new name for a new version of herself. Maybe, yeah. But that’s then and this is now, and right now all she can do is scream her lungs out and lash out over and over and over, soaking the ground with hellbug blood and human tears.

Irisa, coming back to herself at last, stops her. Her hand is shaking, but it’s a heavy weight on Berlin’s arm, surprisingly strong and unsurprisingly tight. There’s something raw in her eyes as she hauls Berlin away from the hellbug’s carcass, and a kind of brutality in the way she doesn’t let go.

“I think it’s dead,” she manages, hushed and haunted.

Berlin punches her in the face.

That makes her let go. She goes down hard, sprawled out on her back with half-melted snow and wet grass matting in her hair. Berlin doesn’t even take a moment to appreciate the sight; she might, if she was in control of herself, but she’s not. The rage is still on the surface, the hate turning her bones to iron and the adrenaline turning every inch of her into a sharp-edged weapon. She surges forward, holds Irisa down with the full weight of her body, straddling her hips and leaning right in until there’s no space between them at all. She’s got one hand vice-tight around her throat, the other fisted in her hair, and her breath is a snarl against her lips. Right here, right now, she’s more dangerous than an army of hellbugs, and they both know it.

“Idiot!” She lets go of her throat, just long enough to land another sickening punch to her face, then grips her again, tighter. “That part of your brilliant plan? Wasn’t enough to get rid of Tommy, you had to knock me out of the picture too?” Probably not, but that doesn’t stop her driving the point home, as blunt and tactless as a brick. “Going after Amanda next? Doc Yewll? Your chupping father?”

Irisa forces out a strangled reply, a gurgling half-syllable that doesn’t resemble any word Berlin’s ever heard. Not that it matters; she’s not listening anyway. She has no intention of releasing the bitch’s throat again, doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction of sucking down a breath, but the need for violence isn’t satisfied by a couple of blind punches. Instead, she just smashes her forehead against Irisa’s, a _crack_ so sudden and so hard that she sees stars herself too. It’s worth it for the way Irisa’s eyes roll back; Berlin laughs, a half-mad half-broken sound, relishing the spasms lodged in Irisa’s throat and the way the muscles tighten and choke under her fingers.

“Idiot,” she says again, but her voice is raw now, as breathless as Irisa’s.

Irisa groans, twisting her body in a parody of struggles; it’s the first time she’s put up any kind of a fight, the first time she hasn’t just held still and let Berlin do what she likes. The rebellion ignites, sets fire to the parts of Berlin that can never resist the thrill of power play, and she slams her hips down to hold her in place. It sets off sparks inside of her, a sea of red washing across her field of vision and a flash of something hotter striking the places where their bodies join; it’s like a blur, a meshing of heat and want, of the way Irisa writhes underneath her and the way her throat tightens in her grasp, a smash-cut from an old-world camera to that moment in the lawkeeper’s office, of fingers replaced with teeth, of sharp hips and a solid wall, of rocking and panting and…

…and suddenly her tongue is in Irisa’s mouth, and Irisa is biting down, and the pain turns her blood to poison, splits her ribs apart; she doesn’t even think to silence the howl that tears from the back of her throat.

Apparently she’s not the only one who gets hot from power play, because suddenly Irisa is driving herself upwards, fingers tangling in Berlin’s hair to hold their mouths together; she’s all teeth and tongue and cracked lips, pulling her in and swallowing her down, gasping moans forced out over the fingers at her throat. It’s hot and heavy, rough in all the best ways and for a blissful moment Berlin allows it. A moment, maybe even two, because she just can’t help herself; Irisa is all ferocity and fervour, the perfect dichotomy of pain and pleasure that gets Berlin off better than anything, and the part of her that’s thinking with its crotch would gladly screw the important stuff if it meant screwing Irisa as well.

She doesn’t, though. Because the important stuff _is_ important, because it’s all well and good bringing a little hurt to the bedroom, but this is about hate. She’s still angry about the damned hellbugs, and if Irisa doesn’t have the balls to use that fight and that passion where it’s needed she sure as shtak doesn’t get to use it for fun. She’s got to earn it, and that’s not going to happen.

Irisa may be showing her teeth for once, but Berlin’s are sharper than hers will ever be, Irathient primitive or not; she has Irisa by the hair too, and there’s real hatred in the way she yanks. They pull apart with an audible _smack_ , a hot wet sound that vibrates along Berlin’s lips when their mouths separate. Irisa grunts at the show of force, and though she’s still working her hips she doesn’t fight back this time. _Good_ , Berlin thinks, and pulls harder on her hair, tugging her head back to expose her throat. The bruise is still there, a pretty little souvenir from the last time they got carried away like this; Berlin bares her teeth and sucks it darker.

There’s something almost feral in the way Irisa moans, deep and low and hungry, and there she is again holding Berlin in place, limbs shaking and muscles whipcord-tight. It makes Berlin hungry too, the defiance so much more than the moan, and she leans back just enough to lash out, a fist to the face that sends Irisa’s head bouncing back to the ground and draws a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. Berlin can’t stand the sight of her, flat on her back and open like that; she licks her lips and dives in to draw a bit more blood, snapping with her teeth and and prying Irisa’s mouth open with her tongue. It’s a show of force, yeah, of passion and power and the scorching kind of pressure that leaves them both gasping.

It’s not just Irisa writhing now; Berlin’s doing it too, rutting like an animal against the seam of her pants, her belt-buckle, against any sharp hard place she can find. She doesn’t mean to, doesn’t even really want to, but it’s so damn _good_ , the heat that pulses in waves when she looks down and sees Irisa sprawled out underneath her, when she leans back and remembers what it means. It’s hard not to get hot, and even harder not to indulge the parts of her that already are; Irisa’s squirming underneath her, eyes and mouth open wide, and _oh_ , the things Berlin could do. She could break her neck, just snap it right here and now, and no-one would ever know…

It takes more strength than she’d ever admit to pull away, to still her hips and her thoughts before either of them run away with her. Irisa’s still panting, still desperate, but Berlin forces herself to block out the sounds, block out the sensation, block out everything but the memory of hellbug teeth smashing under her fist, of the blood still soaking the ground scarcely ten paces away, of all the things Irisa will never earn.

“Now you’re showing your teeth?” she snarls. “ _Now_?” Irisa’s hips jerk against her, no doubt a response to the venom in her voice; despite herself, Berlin has to force back a whine. “Where the hell was _this_ when we needed it? When we were outnumbered by chupping bugs and you were whimpering in a corner? Where the hell were all these Irathient instincts then?” Irisa doesn’t say anything, just keens and whines, so Berlin slams her hips down again, hard enough and at just the right angle that they both cry out. “Answer me, dammit!”

“I don’t…”

But that’s all she has in her. Whatever it is that she doesn’t (or didn’t or wasn’t or whatever), it’s cut off by a stream of Irathient and Berlin’s name hissed like a curse through gritted teeth.

Berlin grits out a curse or two of her own, and none of them as vanilla as a name. Shtako, she hates everything about this. She hates that she can’t get a straight answer out of the mouthy little bitch, hates that she even bothered to ask for one in the first place. She hates the way Irisa moves, uncontrolled and erratic, the way her body makes demands even as her voice catches on whimpers and moans. Most of all, she hates the things it does to her as well. Irisa’s hips are bony but strong, and they know exactly what they’re doing; Berlin’s already so damn wet she can hardly see straight, and that… _that_ , she hates.

She’s got her hands on Irisa’s belt before she even knows what she’s doing. It’s not the hate driving her now, though she’d like to pretend it is, but the desperation, the heat rising like steam between them; she’s tugging and yanking at the stupid thing like their lives depend on it, like the whole damn world depends on her getting into Irisa’s pants right the hell now. Her hips are moving too, riding Irisa’s like a pro, holding them down, holding _her_ down; it might be dangerous, if the little bitch wasn’t enjoying it so much, and the challenge in her eyes is enough to make Berlin grit out more curses and threats and (definitely not) whines.

“Give me one reason not to put you in the ground right now.” She can give challenges too, and unlike Irisa she’s in a damn good position to follow through on them. “Just one reason.”

Irisa’s panting, eyes rolling back in her head. She flails with both hands, fumbling and finding the plane of Berlin’s back, the curve just above her ass. Apparently Berlin’s giving away more than she intended, because Irisa’s reading her like a damn book, taking that pleasure-pain line and storming through it like it’s hers to play with. Berlin hates that, would think twice about it even from someone she trusted, and Irisa is about a thousand miles away from trust. She wants to slap her senseless, beat her until she lets go, but Irisa’s grip is like a kick to the chest and a jolt between the legs all in one. She’s digging in real tight, kneading and clinging and pushing against flesh and muscle; there’s a lot of fabric between them, Berlin’s layers and Irisa’s gloves, but she feels it as clearly and as potently as if it was skin on skin, naked and indoors and warm. It’s awful, yeah, but it’s also decidedly _not_ awful.

With an obvious force of will, Irisa hauls her upper body upright. She has to know that Berlin will just shove her back down, but she does it anyway, because apparently it’s just that important to make eye contact right now, just that important to prove that she can. The intensity on her face makes Berlin’s blood run that much hotter, though, sweat beading between her shoulderblades, so she allows it for now.

“You need me,” Irisa rasps, hoarse and hungry. Berlin is about to punch her again when she realises it’s a riposte to the challenge, not a commentary on what they’re doing. “You need to keep hating me.” She bites down on Berlin’s lip, makes her bleed a little too. “You kill me, and what’s left for you?”

The answer slams into her like a blow, cuts off her breathing just as effortlessly as she cut off Irisa’s. _Nothing. No-one. Tommy._ She has so much rage inside of her, so much grief and loss and pain, so much hate; it never ends, never stops, never even slows. Without someone to blame, without _Irisa_ to blame, where the hell would it go? What would be left for her but impotence and worthlessness? She’s seen what happens to people with no outlet for their demons, and it never ends well.

It stings, thinking about it like that. She’s not exactly strong, much as she likes to pretend she is, but there’s a big difference between turning tail when shtako gets hard and depending on a damn murderer to keep her sane; Berlin’s never been particularly good at staying on the straight and narrow — she has more reprimands in her dossier than any other soldier she’s ever met, and not all of them for drunk-and-disorderly — but she’s always been at least mostly able to hold herself together when it mattered. Not necessarily _well_ , granted, but always on her own.

Not any more, apparently. What Irisa did, the mess she left behind… it’s too much, and Berlin can’t stand the idea of being bound to her like that, tied to the very woman who shoved her underwater to hold her afloat and keep her from drowning. She hates that more than she’ll ever be able to say, and of course that hate just fuels the violence even more.

She whips off Irisa’s belt, sharp and fast, and the hiss of leather on fabric makes them both suck in their breath.

“I don’t need you,” she says, and rams her elbow into Irisa’s face. Irisa falls back again (amazing how the Goddess of the chupping Badlands can’t seem to take a hit), and Berlin pulls the belt taut across her throat, choking off her breath and holding her down. “I don’t need _anything_ from you.”

“You do.” The words are a gurgle, rattling and lodged beneath the strap at her throat; it probably would have cut off anyone else completely, but Irisa refuses to let it silence her. “Need someone to hate. Need someone to _hurt_.”

Berlin hates that it’s true, hates that Irisa knows that much about her, hates that this is something they probably share, this mutual sadomasochistic bullshtak. She’s always been like this, as long as she can remember, so full up on violence and hate, so swollen on the terrible things the world keeps throwing at her, and she’ll never admit out loud how vindicating it was to see that same brokenness light up behind Irisa’s eyes the first time they met. A hundred lifetimes ago now, feels like, but she can’t forget it. The air crackling between them, the animosity and the threat, gauntlets thrown down and picked up without a word… of course Irisa would see it in her; in that, if nothing else, they’re practically the same. 

The world, at least as far as Berlin’s ever seen it, is shtako. She’s not sure she’s ever known what it’s like to live without hating, without lulling herself to sleep at night with visions of ripping someone’s head off, of knocking their teeth out or cutting off their balls, whichever was closer to her hand at the time. For a long, long time, young and alone and completely ill-equipped to deal with anything, that was the Votans, the twisted alien bastards who killed everyone who had ever mattered to her, who tore into her life and tore it apart right there in front of her. Indulging in violent fantasies kept her alive when nothing else would, daydreaming about the days when she could protect herself, when she wouldn’t be forced to stand by and watch as innocent people got slaughtered. Not exactly healthy, sure, but who was there to tell her that at the time?

And, okay, she’ll admit it: maybe there’s some part of her that looks at Irisa and still sees those same Votan bastards who broke into her home all those years ago. Even now, yeah, even with so much other stuff between them; Irisa’s given her no shortage of reasons to make her bleed, but maybe there’s still a little part of her that gets its kicks from finally finding one of those twisted alien bastards she can push around, someone she can use to vent all those years of hurt and helplessness on. Irisa makes a happy enough target now, since Tommy and New York, since her guilty conscience overpowered the parts of her that were hard-wired to resist authority. It’s a good combination, the alien rebel who won’t obey and the self-flagellating murderer who wants to be punished for unimaginable atrocities. Either way, she’s a willing participant, all too eager to take whatever Berlin dishes out, and Berlin… well, she has so much hate to give.

It’s not just about Tommy. Not for either of them, really. Irisa has a whole damn city’s worth of blood on her hands; whatever she might have felt for Tommy, whatever he might have felt for her in turn, it’s a drop in the bucket next to that, and they both know it. Berlin’s heard the way Irisa’s voice gets rough when she says his name, but she’s not fooling anyone into thinking that’s the worst of it. As for herself, Berlin’s been here before; she’s learned that hard way that sometimes hating is the safest thing to do, that sometimes hurting the thing that hurt you is the only way to keep yourself safe, the only way to make damn sure that it won’t ever happen again. She learned it once, twenty-odd years ago, and she’s never looked back since. She couldn’t afford it, not until she joined the E-Rep, and by then the hate was so deeply embedded inside of her that it would’ve taken a charge-blade to cut it out.

It’s a hard lesson to learn, for sure, but it’s a whole lot harder to unlearn once it’s there, and it makes her so angry, so _violent_ to know that Irisa sees all of that, to know that she understands, that she learned it all those years ago too, that she knows exactly where it comes from and why it’s there. It makes her want to kill her, not with bullets but with her bare hands and the butt of that damn pistol, feral and furious just like she was with the hellbug. She’d rip out her eyes if she could, if she thought for a second that it would stop the bitch from looking up at her and _seeing_.

“Shut up,” she snarls, though Irisa’s been silent for a while.

She pulls the stupid belt as tight as it’ll go, vindictive and ruthless, and slides her hips across the fabric creasing between them when Irisa lets out a ragged gasp. She holds her there for a good long moment, waits for the tipping point, the moment when her skin turns pale, when her face contorts into strangled panic, that beautiful picture-perfect moment when she truly believes that Berlin will kill her, that she really will strangle the life out of her and leave her dead in the snow. It gets her hot all over again, the sight of her so desperate and so helpless and so damn _scared_ ; she’s completely at her mercy, and that… _that_ …

Well. Suffice it to say, it’s far more passion than compassion that makes her stop.

She tosses the belt aside, freeing her hands for more pressing matters and freeing Irisa’s throat to suck down some much-needed air. It’s music to her ears, the way she chokes and splutters, face flushing and turning damn near purple as she struggles to fill her lungs. Honest to god, it’s like porn, the kind Berlin makes with her grainy old-world cameras, the kind she keeps all for herself, secret and sordid and _hers_.

That gets her worked up too, thinking about this like that, and she shifts her hips lower, grinding herself agains whatever semi-solid body part she can find. It’s clumsy, awkward, but she doesn’t care, and Irisa definitely doesn’t seem to mind; she’s got her head thrown back, sharp teeth showing as her mouth falls open. It makes Berlin’s own mouth go dry, makes her lean in at uncomfortable angles to kiss her, deep and dirty, halfway blind as she fumbles the buttons on Irisa’s pants.

She shoves her hand under the fabric as soon as there’s enough room, and it’s almost enough to get her off in itself, the way Irisa moans into her mouth when she drives her fingers inside, three of them twisting hard without warning. She doesn’t prepare her, doesn’t give her a moment to adjust, doesn’t do any of that nice polite Appropriate-Things-To-Do-When-Chupping-Someone-Senseless shtako. She doesn’t do a damn thing, not that she needed to. Irisa is as almost wet as she is, and her spread legs and bucking hips say it all. _Good_ and _yes_ and _more_.

Berlin isn’t gentle, not even close, but then Irisa doesn’t want her to be. Not here, no more than she would’ve wanted her to show mercy back in the lawkeeper’s office, the first time or the second. If she’d wanted gentle, she wouldn’t have come after Berlin in the first place, wouldn’t have spread herself out and pushed, wouldn’t have said _“do it”_ or _“go on”_ or all the rest. She doesn’t want gentle; she wants the kind of rough that leaves her bent double, the kind that makes it hard to walk, the kind that leaves bruises on her thighs, draws blood from her mouth, the kind of rough that doesn’t forgive. In this, just as in everything else, Irisa wants to be punished, and Berlin wants nothing more than to punish the living hell out of her.

She thrusts hard, and punctuates it with her teeth, snapping down on her tongue, her lips. Irisa whimpers into her mouth, and Berlin pulls back just enough to get a real good look at her, bruise-bitten and shaking and beautifully exposed.

“You like that?”

It’s not really a question, but Irisa turns her head to the side anyway, like the truth is as easy to hide as her worthless murdering face. No answer, no reply, and it’s just a little too close to defiance for Berlin’s taste. She rears back with her free arm, backhands her until both of their bodies are wracked with tremors. Berlin smiles, focuses on the other hand; she rakes with her nails, then jerks her hips when Irisa cries out.

“That’s not an answer,” she manages, voice raw.

Irisa meets her gaze; Berlin has never had sex with an Irathient before, and she’s never seen pupils blown so big.

“Does it matter?”

She’s got some balls answering a question with a question, especially now, but this one’s practically a wail, a plea for more or a plea for her to stop or maybe a plea for something else entirely; it’s kind of hard to tell at this point, messed up and messy as they both are, and if the look on Irisa’s face is anything to go by, all lip-biting and jaw-clenching, she doesn’t know what she wants any better than Berlin.

“It matters,” Berlin gets out, and even that is a strain. “It matters because I chupping asked.”

She punctuates the point by driving her fingers in deeper, twisting until she knows it hurts and cutting off whatever Irisa might have said. The words die in a howl, a desperate shriek that’s equal parts a cry for _less_ and for _more_. The sound goes right to Berlin’s groin, a lightning-bolt where her underwear’s already damn near ruined, sticky and clinging in the places where she’s most sensitive. She buries her face in Irisa’s neck to muffle her own moan, biting down on the sucked-off bruise as the sensation washes over her, and the points of her teeth make Irisa cry out again.

“ _Yes_.”

It’s not really an answer to the question, but that doesn’t stop Berlin pretending that it is, pretending that she’s forced the answer out of her, choked it out as surely as she would have choked the life out of her with one more tug on the belt. It doesn’t last, the affirmation; in a heartbeat Irisa’s back to her roots, cursing in Irathient and gritting out words that Berlin only halfway understands, raw-throated syllables that don’t make any sense. Not that it matters; Berlin doesn’t need to know Irathient to know what it means when Irisa throws her head back and bucks those bony hips.

She lifts her head, claims Irisa’s mouth in a ferocious _something_ , a clash of teeth and lips that’s far too violent to be called a kiss. Whatever it is, Irisa returns it in kind; she’s just as hot as Berlin if not more so in her feral alien way, and maybe she notices the way Berlin can’t stop her own hips from moving, can’t hold back the sparks jolting through her, because the vibration against her tongue feels a lot like laughter, like a sordid kind of triumph, like a whole lot of things that an Irathient murderer shouldn’t be allowed to feel.

“Shut up.”

It’s stupid, of course; even if Berlin had given her control of her own tongue, Irisa never actually said anything. Still, it’s as good an excuse as any for Berlin to take back control. She stills her fingers, the three still buried knuckle-deep and her thumb pressing down just a little too hard on other places. She stills her hips too, with a far greater force of will than she’d ever admit, and grips the back of Irisa’s neck with her free hand, holding fast and hauling her as close to upright as she can get.

Irisa snaps her teeth, eyes on Berlin’s mouth; with her tongue free, she runs it over her lips, catching blood and balming bruises. Berlin wants to make that tongue do unspeakable things, but she won’t. She just squeezes her neck and bites down on the urge to start grinding again.

“You want it?” she demands. Irisa doesn’t respond, not until Berlin tightens her grip on her neck, not until she leans in to lick the Irathient markings on her face, not until she flexes her fingers. That, she reacts to, and the ragged moan is more of an answer than all the _‘yes’_ or _‘please’_ in the whole damn world. Berlin shuts her eyes tight, feels the answer squeeze her fingers. “Good. _Work_ for it.”

It surprises the hell out of her when Irisa actually does as she’s told. It probably shouldn’t; she should know by now that Irisa gets off on being hurt just as readily as Berlin gets off on doing the hurting. Probably the guilt thing again, or some other masochistic nonsense; whatever it is, it’s working really well for both of them right now, so she doesn’t bother thinking about it. Irisa is using Berlin’s back as leverage, pressing down with her palms and squeezing the muscles underneath with iron-tight fingers; it feels good, much better than Berlin will ever admit, and it doesn’t help at all that the little murderer is so chupping shameless about it.

Funny, how they’re alike in this, unapologetic in the way they get their pleasure, even when it crosses lines that other people might balk at. Irisa’s not shy, and she’s not embarrassed; she uses her whole body, thrusting against Berlin’s hand like a damn pro, like one of the NeedWant’s best. That part’s not so good, Berlin realises a split-second too late, because being _good_ is a two-way street and Irisa has no place driving Berlin around; there she is, though, doing it anyway, angling her thigh up and finding the seam of Berlin’s pants, the creasing friction she’s been rubbing against. It makes her see stars for a moment, the way Irisa presses up against her, but she can’t let it go further, can’t let herself careen any closer to this particular cliff.

“No.”

It’s supposed to be chiding, but it comes out as a gasp. Irisa quirks a brow, licks her lips, and Berlin has to swallow to keep from moaning.

“Oh?”

“You heard me.” It takes way too much effort to keep from giving in, to hoist herself up onto her knees and pull away from the muscle and the pressure sliding against her. She feels herself clench at the loss, the sudden damp space and the _ache_ , but she ignores the pleas of her body to focus on Irisa’s. “You don’t get to play.”

Her body protests, far more viciously than Irisa, but Irisa is the one with the voice, and she uses it to devastating effect. “Afraid I’m going to break you?”

Berlin punches her for that. Once, twice, and the third sprays blood. Irisa must have anticipated it, must have realised that she was pushing Berlin’s buttons, but if the look on her face is anything to go by she barely felt the impact at all. She’s still grinding down on Berlin’s hand, rutting against her thumb and squeezing her fingers, and when her jaw clenches Berlin can tell that it has nothing to do with the pain or the bruises that they both know are going to colour her face for days to come. 

It makes her want to do something worse, something the little murderer couldn’t possibly shrug off or ignore. But then what could she do that Irisa doesn’t want? What is there that she wouldn’t twist into some kind of masochistic pain-pleasure, punishment for Tommy or flagellation for New York or penance for all the other people she’s killed or hurt in her worthless little life? What could Berlin possibly do that Irisa wouldn’t enjoy because she deserves it?

That shouldn’t stop her. She knows it shouldn’t. Irisa does deserve it, after all; shouldn’t that be enough? Wasn’t that what this was supposed to be about? Why the hell does Berlin care what Irisa feels when it was supposed to be about what _she_ feels?

The question strikes harder than she expects it to, turning the fire in her blood to ice, cutting off the tide of heat almost entirely, if only for a moment. It forces her to look down, to find Irisa’s face, not just to look at her but to really see her, probably for the first time since she came crawling back to Defiance. _Irisa_ , not the sinister version of her that Berlin’s been seeing for so long now, the monster that killed Tommy and dropped an Ark on a city, but the person behind all that, the body behind the bloodshed and the soul behind the slaughter. Irisa, and the guilty conscience that’s been hanging on the air between them, the self-loathing that brought her to Berlin’s side again and again, that spat its poison out through words like _“do it”_ and _“I’m sorry”_ , that took every opportunity it could find to crawl into the dark dirty corners and beg for pain exactly like this. Irisa, who came to her and let her pour out all of her own hurts, all of her own hate, who begged her to beat her blue, not because she saw some kind of kindred spirit or whatever but because Berlin was the only person in Defiance actually willing to give her what she needed.

It’s a very different vision to the one Berlin’s been seeing, the one she’s beaten bloody and thrown up against the wall, the one she gives in to every time. And maybe that’s it as well, maybe it’s not just Irisa that she’s seeing now, the soul behind those bright alien eyes, but her own too reflected back at her in a sickly shade of yellow.

It has been a very, very long time since Berlin took the time to look at herself. Years, probably longer, since she stepped back and truly saw the woman behind the uniform, the face and the body and the person staring back when she looks in the mirror. Years since she saw anything in herself at all, any colours beyond E-Rep blue, any purpose beyond the badge on her chest and the camera in her hand and the guns strapped to her back and sides. And, yeah, it’s been years too since she let herself remember the terrified angry kid who started down this path in the first place, who learned the price of murder almost before she learned anything else about the world. It’s been years, _years_ , since she took a step back and wondered what sort of person that terrified angry kid might have become, and even longer since she took a long hard look at the thing she did.

Her fingers curl inside Irisa, a sharp twitch that wants to become a fist, that probably would if it could; there’s not enough fingers inside her, though, and Irisa’s got the rest trapped between her thighs, so all she can do is flinch and flex and hate the flood of heat and the way Irisa clamps down. She’s crying out, voice breaking over the sensation, muscles tightening to spasms around her, and of course Berlin knows what that means, knows that the little masochist is close. She wants to pull out, wants to stop the whole thing in its tracks, cut off the climax before it can start, and make them both suffer, but she doesn’t.

Honestly, she doesn’t know why. A twisted kind of compassion, maybe; it’s hard to look down, to see Irisa and know how exposed she is, how unlike the bloodthirsty killer Berlin so desperately needed to believe she was. Maybe she’s just going soft. Hell, maybe it’s just not worth it any more, all the needless thinking and seeing and understanding. It’s too much work, trying to keep it separate, the things she wants to see in Irisa and the things that she really does see, the things she wants to believe about herself and the things she knows aren’t true. It’s too much.

And maybe that’s all the reason she needs to give in and give Irisa what she wants. She doesn’t want to think, doesn’t want to feel. She just wants to make Irisa _hurt_ , and if slamming her fingers in knuckle-deep is what it takes, then shouldn’t that be enough?

It is, and not just for her. Irisa clamps down, shouting in Irathient as she comes, and her fingers turn to talons at Berlin’s back. There’s too much fabric between them for Berlin to really feel the sting of it, but she’s pretty sure they’d be leaving deep tracks if it was skin on skin. She almost wishes that it was, that she could really feel it, that she could look in the mirror later and see Irisa’s brand scored down her back. _Almost_ , yeah, but not completely, and she shoves the thought aside as quickly as it came.

It’s easier to focus on Irisa right now anyway, and she does, drawing out the sensations, the pain and the pleasure both, for as long as she can. Berlin’s leaving her own marks too, ones not blunted by barriers, and her teeth are as sharp as Irisa’s shudders as she bites that spot on her neck until they both threaten to snap.

She pulls out very suddenly; Irisa’s still clenching around her, still riding the sensation, and Berlin takes vindictive pleasure in cutting it off at the source before it’s finished. She can’t take back the fact that she let Irisa enjoy this, can’t undo the way she relished the sight of her, head thrown back and eyelids fluttering, the way she dragged out the pleasure just as much as the pain, but she can end it a moment or two too soon; if nothing else, she can leave her in limbo, only halfway satisfied and still aching for more. She can, oh yes, and she does.

Irisa’s whole body jerks when she pulls out, sharp and shuddery. It’s definitely more pain than pleasure now, and the sight of it sends a jolt through Berlin as well, reminds her in no uncertain terms that Irisa’s not the only one getting hot from this. She can feel the tremors under her, knows that Irisa will be raw and sore for days at least, but it’s hard to think about that when she’s so turned on she can scarcely see straight. She’s soaked through, frustrated and throbbing, but the part of her that can’t see the murdering Irathient any more, that can only see the _person_ in both of them, can’t bring itself to seek its own gratification, can’t even bring itself to try. It’s more than just want at this point, it’s an inferno of need, but there are lines that even a morally grey E-Rep soldier won’t cross, and this is one of them.

Maybe, in its own way it’s a kind of self-flagellation, a way of turning that masochism she sees in Irisa back on herself, or else a pointed reminder that Irisa isn’t the only one who’s done horrible things, that in truth she never was.

Irisa doesn’t wait for her body to catch its breath. She doesn’t give herself a moment to come down, maybe sensing that Berlin expects her to be helpless, maybe wanting to prove that she’s not. She’s stubborn, fiery, and the second she can move she’s all over Berlin, grabbing her by the collar and pulling her in close. Berlin doesn’t resist, though that’s more a product of surprise than anything else; her mouth falls open when Irisa’s finds it, kissing and kissing and kissing until she feels bruises burning against the bone. Irisa won’t be the only one wearing marks from this, she knows, and wishes that the thought didn’t excite her as much as it does, wishes it didn’t make her hotter.

 _Not you,_ she thinks, swallowing down Irisa’s moans to smother her own. _Not you, not now, not this, not you._

Irisa doesn’t hear that, though; how can she, when Berlin refuses to say it aloud? All Irisa knows is what she can see, what she can feel, and Berlin’s body is anything but subtle in giving away its wants. The tension in her muscles speaks for itself, and her hips are still moving of their own volition, wanton and wanting and rough. She’s groaning into Irisa’s mouth, damn near whimpering and consoling herself that she won’t know the difference when the sounds are drowned by the back of her throat.

Irisa’s going at it like it’s her divine right, like Berlin gave her permission to do any of this; her hands are clumsy and awkward, probably still half-numb from clinging and scratching her way through that climax, but she makes the most of what she has, fumbling over Berlin’s torso and working her way through the layers of clothing, past the coat, over the holster, under the shirt, down and deeper and down until Berlin’s vision fades to white.

She wants to keep going. More than anything else in the world, she wants to lean back and let Irisa do what the hell she wants. Hell, right now she doesn’t even care if Irisa just lies there and lets her do all the work herself; she could just as happily ride those bony hips until she hits the right angle, until she gets the right kind of friction, until she howls loud enough to mute even Irisa’s Irathient wailing, until the little murderer isn’t the only one who can’t walk straight. She wants it so badly, so desperately, and she can’t help indulging it for a moment or two.

Who wouldn’t, right? It’s too easy, too hard to resist. They’re both right there, Irisa still squirming underneath her, thighs and hips and the seams of her pants all in exactly the right places, and it would take more willpower than Berlin has ever possessed to keep from lowering herself down and sliding, sliding, _sliding_. It’s not exactly relief, the sparks that surge under her clothes, but it’s good just the same, glorious hot friction keeping time with Irisa’s wandering, needy hands. It’s too good, dammit, and there’s almost nothing that she wouldn’t give to see it through, just come and be done and finally, finally feel better. _God_ , she needs this, but she can’t. Won’t.

It’s not right. Again, she wills herself to remember that. Again, she refuses to let herself forget. She can’t do this. Not here, not now. It doesn’t matter how good it feels, doesn’t matter how badly she wants it, how desperately she needs it; she can’t let it end like this. Not with Irisa in control, and definitely not by her hand.

She lifts her hips, curses again as the throb intensifies, cut off from the contact that set it alight. It takes everything she has to keep from screaming, letting out the frustration in the only way she knows, but she holds it in just as stubbornly as she holds everything else in; Irisa’s already seen her scream, and she won’t let her see it here. Not like this, soaked in sweat and other things, helpless and hopeless and horny. No chupping way.

She grips Irisa’s wrists in her hand, pins her arms above her head, presses her back against the snow. There’s no power play this time; she just can’t risk letting those hands wander again, not when her restraint is already on the brink of shattering. Irisa doesn’t struggle, but the self-satisfied grin on her face makes Berlin want to let release her arms just so she can punch her again. She would, too, if she didn’t know that’s exactly what the bitch wants.

“No,” she says again, and wonders which of the two she’s trying to punish this time. “I told you. You don’t get to play.”

“Is that what this is?” Irisa arches her back, playful but with more than a hint of threat. “Playing?”

Berlin thinks about that. It shouldn’t be an odd question, but it hits at a strange angle, catches her off-guard and forces her to think. Because, yeah, it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? Isn’t that the whole point of shtak like this?

It’s as simple as anything ever is, or at least it should be. Need and want and pleasure, fooling around and raising welts, chupping in the dirt and keeping the other person quiet by swallowing their tongue. It’s not the first time Berlin’s done this sort of thing. Out in the field after a hair-trigger mission, adrenaline pumping and nerves lit up from the fear and excitement and all the rest of it. Hell, it’s not even the first time she’s done this with someone like Irisa, killers with blood on their hands, soldiers with guilty consciences they want to wash clean with dirtier fluids. She’s all but lost count of the pretty men and women she’s taken like this (but not the ones who took _her_ like this; those she can count on one hand), and it always ends with a shrug and a smile and _‘fair play’_.

This isn’t like that, though; this is nothing like that. It’s not about working through the heat and the hunger, not about unwinding after too much stress or too much death, getting the adrenaline out before it sours to poison in her gut. This is about violence, about power and pain and all the things that have been simmering between them since long before Tommy died. It’s about the way Irisa lets herself be rough here even when she won’t pick up a gun against a goddamned hellbug, about the way Berlin can’t trust her to have her back but still somehow Irisa trusts _her_ to do all these awful things, to beat her and bruise her and break her and then chup her in the dirt like she’s just another soldier. It’s about the way Berlin wants all those things too, the way she loves it when Irisa hurts and the way she doesn’t hate it when she hurts too.

Fact is, maybe Irisa wasn’t completely wrong when she said that Berlin needs the hate just as much as Irisa needs to be hated. Maybe she wasn’t wrong when she told Berlin that she needs someone to blame, someone to hurt, someone to pour all her own pain into, and maybe she wasn’t wrong either when she came to her in search of all those mutual things. _“Do it,”_ she said, because she knew that no-one else would. And Berlin did, because no-one else would, because no-one else understood, because no-one else could see the things that she could. 

It’s a lot of things, this mess they’re in, but the one thing it’s not is _playing_.

“No,” she says out loud. Irisa doesn’t deserve much, but she deserves that.

Berlin shakes her head, more to clear it than to drive the denial home, and lets go of Irisa’s wrists. Irisa leaves her arms up there, twisted at painful angles above her head, and watches through half-lidded eyes as Berlin drags herself to her feet. Her clothes are a mess, on the inside more than out, and she can’t imagine what her face must look like. Irisa’s is worse, though; that much she knows for sure. She was never human, but now she could scarcely pass as one at all, blood and bruises transforming her into something almost unrecognisable. It makes Berlin think of raiders, of VC deserters, animal-people with paint on their faces and colours in their hair, and it makes her want to wash those visions away with a different kind of violence, a different kind of mark to memorise.

Irisa studies her, licking at the blood around her mouth, and sits up. Her fingers are shaking, prodding unsteadily at the bruises mottling her skin; it’s a twisted kind of hot, the way she does that, and it ignites the heat in Berlin’s veins all over again, drives away the old thoughts and fills her head with the new ones, the kind of violence she knows how to ride. There’s heat in Irisa too, and the sway of her hips as she swings to her feet is definitely deliberate. She’s teasing her, Berlin knows, maybe even mocking, but she doesn’t care. Not when she’s caught the light in her eyes, seen the way her pupils are still blown, the way she’s breathing like a dog in heat. She’s feeling it too, and when she wipes away some of the blood on her face, there’s a moan on her lips that says she’s halfway to getting off again just from thinking about the way Berlin roughed her up, just from remembering the force of her fingers.

It makes Berlin want to get off too, want turning warm and wet in the pit of her belly, and she has to shut her eyes for a very long moment to stay in control.

“You’ll never make it back to town in that state,” Irisa quips dryly.

Berlin’s far from dry herself, but of course that’s not the point; she won’t give Irisa the satisfaction. “That’s my problem, isn’t it?” She cracks her eyes open, shoots her a glare that could kill. “It’s sure as shtak not yours.”

“Suit yourself,” Irisa says with a shrug. “I was just trying to help.”

“I don’t need anything from you,” Berlin grits out. It’s very, very hard to breathe.

Irisa’s eyes darken again, not with want this time but with something else. Pain, maybe… or, worse, empathy. “That’s not true,” she says softly. “You still need to hate me.”

Berlin kicks her in the head, relishes the _crack_ and the groan and the way Irisa doesn’t go down this time. “I don’t need _anything_ from you.”

Irisa doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. She just turns her head and smiles, and lets the blood on her teeth be all the answer either of them need.

*


	5. Chapter 5

*

It feels like a lifetime before they limp back to Defiance.

Irisa spends a long time crouched over the hellbugs’ victim, an unrecognisable corpse with its face half-eaten and its body in a state that’s even worse. For someone who had a complete meltdown over the idea of having to hold a weapon, she’s surprisingly calm about playing around with dead bodies, rifling through what’s left of its clothes like there’s nothing weird in it at all; she goes at it like a pro, so much so that even Berlin can’t deny being impressed. Murderer or not, efficiency is always something to admire.

For her part, Berlin keeps a careful distance. She’s seen far worse shtako than this in her time, and she’s far from squeamish even on a bad day, but if Irisa’s willing to wade in and do the unpleasant stuff why should she have to get her hands dirty too? Besides, now that her hands aren’t busy with other things, she’s kind of depending on her gun to keep them steady; it’s a long way back to town and the half-dozen shot glasses she wants so badly, and the last thing in the world she needs is for Irisa to see that she’s twitching now too.

It’s not exactly a surprise that things don’t end there. They should, she knows; this is as straightforward as any field mission she’s ever been on: find body, identify body, salvage body’s possessions, go home spend the next two days in the shower. Textbook stuff, right? Or it would be if not for the extraneous Irathient variable.

Honestly, there’s a part of her that knew this would happen, and as Irisa turns to look at her she’s already bracing for that sad kicked-puppy face. The blood and the bruises don’t do much to shroud the hope in her eyes, the blithe cock-eyed optimism that got them into this mess in the first place, and Berlin hates how close she comes to falling into them again. It’s just a look, a stupid hopeful look, but it’s enough to make her almost lose her grip on the gun, enough to make her fumble and curse and look like an idiot. It’s enough that, if she’s really truthful with herself, she knows precisely how this conversation is going to end before Irisa even opens her mouth.

“We need to bring him with us.”

It’s not a request, Berlin knows, but she’ll be chupped sideways before she lets that keep her from refusing it. “No.”

“He deserves a proper—”

“ _No_.”

Irisa’s eyes are unbearably bright, all wide and watery and whatever, like she really thinks that tragic-hopeful routine is going to work a second time, like anyone is that much of a damn pushover. Not much chance of that after last time; Berlin has no intention of being guilt-tripped into another blood-and-guts disaster, thank you very much.

“Berlin…”

“I said ‘no’.”

Irisa sighs. She was probably expecting that too, but she’s not about to give up either. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“Oh yes we can.” Berlin tightens her shoulders, sets her feet apart. It’s been a while since she had to harness her E-Rep training, adopt the stance of a superior officer, but she does it now. “You used up all your sympathy points when you choked and forced me to take on a swarm of chupping hellbugs all by myself. Answer’s ‘no’. You get a name and an ID and whatever other possessions you can salvage, and we’re out of here. Amanda can get hold of his next of kin, if the idiot even has any.”

Irisa’s expression doesn’t change. Too much to hope for, Berlin supposes. “Berlin…”

“Are you deaf?” It’s probably the most polite of the thoughts churning in her head right now. “If you think for one second that I’m dragging a half-eaten corpse all the way back to town on the off-chance that some idiot back there might miss him enough to—”

“Someone does miss him.” Irisa turns back to the body, face pale.

Berlin doesn’t ask how she could possibly be so sure of that. Fact is, she doesn’t give a damn, and she’s not shy about saying so. “I don’t care.” Heartless, quite probably, but she’s never shied away from the truth before, and she has no intention of starting now. “I’m not breaking my back over a dead body. You hear me? I’m not—”

“ _Berlin_.”

There’s no softness in the way she says it this time, no pleading puppy-dog idealism; the name cracks like a whip, like Irisa’s pulled off her stupid belt again and lashed her across the back with it. Berlin sucks in her breath, straightens her spine. “No.”

Irisa stands her ground. She looks almost like a soldier, holding herself strong and steady, shoulders set and spine straight. If she was anyone else, Berlin might have allowed herself a moment to be impressed.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she says. “You know it is.”

“What I ‘know’,” Berlin throws back, hands on her hips, “is that I want to make it back to Defiance in one piece.”

Irisa shakes her head, like she doesn’t really believe that, like she can’t wrap her head around the fact that a human being would be so willing to leave a dead body out in the fields to rot. Well, she can believe whatever she like, Berlin thinks. She’s not giving in. Not to this.

“You know it’s right,” Irisa says again.

“I know you’re an idiot,” Berlin counters, and doesn’t give a hellbug’s ass that it makes her sound like a tantrum-throwing three-year-old. “And I know that the last time I listened to you, I had to take out a swarm of hellbugs all by myself because you choked. That’s what I know.”

“I’m sorry.” She sounds so tired, more and more every time she says it. “But…”

Berlin rolls her eyes. She’s cold and cranky, among other unpleasant sensations, and standing here arguing isn’t getting her any closer to Defiance and the dozen or so hours she needs to spend locked up somewhere private with a bottle in one hand and herself in the other.

“Don’t you think I’ve compromised enough for one day?” she asks.

It’s a sincere question, and Irisa doesn’t answer. No surprise there, either; she never answers questions when she knows they’ll turn the conversation against her. She’s stubborn that way, or possibly just clever. Hard to tell. Berlin thinks about calling her out on it, pointing out that they both know she’s right, that there’s no possible argument Irisa can make that’ll turn this around in her favour. Thinks about it, sure, but what would be the point? Other than coming off as petty, obviously, and as tempting as that is in itself (why stop at _‘I know you’re an idiot’_ , after all?) it’s not worth the effort.

They stare each other down for a long tense moment, Berlin standing soldier-smart and Irisa scowling stubborn-strong. The distance between them feels so much wider than it is, the air turning thick with tension and the certainty that neither one of them is willing to break. Well, Berlin thinks, let the little bitch sulk and scowl and stomp her feet if it’ll make her feel beyyer. Let her do whatever the hell she likes; it’s not going to change anything. They’re too far from home, both of them bruised and bloody, covered with dirt and snow and better-not-to-ask-what else and close to exhaustion, to say nothing of the fact that they’ve wasted more ammo than they have left. Taking on the extra burden isn’t just stupid at this point, it’s downright dangerous, and if Irisa thinks for one second that her sense of what’s ‘right’ is going to outwit Berlin’s sense of what’s sensible, she’s a bigger idiot than she thought.

_No_ , she thinks again. _This time, we do things my way. This time—_

“Do what you like,” Irisa says, cutting off the thought like a charge-blade through butter. “ _I’m_ bringing him home.”

Berlin swears.

*

So here they are, because apparently she’s is as spineless as Irisa is stubborn.

Well, her hands were pretty well tied, weren’t they? Easy enough to knock Irisa unconscious and drag her ass back to town by herself, but either way she’d still be hauling dead weight. To hell with it, her pride thinks sullenly; might as well stick with the option that puts the bulk of the weight on Irisa’s shoulders.

Still, the defeat stings. There’ll be hell to pay once they get home; they can both be sure of that.

It’s no picnic, stumbling back to town through half-melted snow and slush while balancing a half-eaten dead guy between them, and Berlin has never wanted anyone to die quite as desperately as she wants Irisa to right now.

“Still got a couple of bullets left,” she mutters, only partially to herself. “Could put us both out of our misery…”

Irisa doesn’t answer, probably more the product of exertion than anything else. She’s got her jaw clenched white-tight, eyes streaming in the sunlight, and she’s squinting at the horizon like it’s the only thing in the world that matters. Not likely — they’ve still got forever to go, and not even so much as a shimmer of a stasis net in sight — but still she’s staring at it like it’s the chupping Holy Grail, like it’s all the distraction she needs to keep her mind off the less pleasant things, the corpse hanging between their shoulders and the snow seeping in through their clothes. _Easy for her_ , Berlin thinks sourly, and knocks the dead guy’s hand away from her face.

For herself, it’s another story. She could stare at the horizon all she wants, could count their steps or their breaths, could focus on any one of a thousand things, and it wouldn’t make the least bit of difference. Berlin has never been the kind of person who can just tune stuff out like that. It’s a big part of what makes her so good with a camera; for better or worse, she never misses a detail, and she can’t ignore something once she knows it’s there. She can’t shut off the parts of her that see the world through a director’s lens, can’t close her eyes and fail to notice the little things, the paper-thin scratches carved into smooth surfaces, damaging and degrading and transforming them into something new.

Irisa’s like that too, damaged and degraded. It’s one of the many reasons why blood and bruises look so damn good on her, why Berlin’s fists always find the right places so easily. It makes her outsides match the shtako that Berlin knows is inside her, the bad memories and dark deeds she keeps locked away from Nolan and Amanda and everyone else, all those Goddess-worshipping saps who don’t know what it’s really like. She can blind them easily enough with those puppy-dog eyes, but she can’t blind someone who’s spent her entire life squinting through apertures.

Berlin hates this. She hates how easy it is for Irisa, how easy _everything_ is for Irisa, when it’s so damn hard for her and the people like her, the people who have to work at the simplest things, who can’t shut off their thoughts and can’t quiet the parts of them that have suffered and struggled and lost. Irisa just needs to look at the horizon, let the light fill her eyes, and that’s enough. Berlin could stare until she goes blind and it still wouldn’t be enough. In a bitter sort of way, she’s almost thankful for the weight of the body between them, because it means she can’t lash out; she can’t give in to her primal instincts this time, can’t seek out the only kind of distraction that ever did work. Her legs are burning, an unpleasant combination of exertion and the need left over from earlier, and she kind of wants to take a break but she doesn’t trust her fists not to find Irisa’s face again the instant they’re free.

(She doesn’t trust herself not to do other things with her fists too, but that’s not for Irisa, and it’s definitely not for now.)

After a long, maddening silence, Irisa finally turns to look at her. The sunlight makes her eyes seem brighter than they are, and paler too; it’s a vivid contrast to the black-hole pupils-burst of earlier, where the bruises on her skin seemed almost to burn in her eyes as well. Now she just looks tired and wan, but there’s something in her that makes it very difficult for Berlin to look away.

“What now?” she grits out. Irisa opens her mouth, then closes it again; Berlin rolls her eyes. “Out with it.”

Irisa swallows hard, looks away. “Thank you,” she mumbles after a moment.

Berlin doesn’t even try to hide the surprise. “I’m sorry?”

“You heard me.”

It’s almost an accusation, the way she says it, like she thinks Berlin is deliberately trying to get a rise out of her, or else pushing her to say it again, milking the moment for more than it’s worth. She’s not, of course; fact is, she’s just flat-out confused. They’ve put each other through so much over the last couple of days, and Berlin can’t think of a damn thing that’s worth a ‘thank you’.

“I heard you,” she says, guarded. “Any bruise in particular you’re thankful for?” 

Irisa snorts, a guttural throaty sound that is dangerously close to an honest-to-god laugh. “No,” she says. “I mean, for this.”

“This,” Berlin deadpans. “You mean the dead guy? That ‘this’?”

“Yes. That ‘this’.” She catches Berlin’s gaze again, holds it, and Berlin has to swallow very hard to keep from drowning in all that light. “It’s a long way back to Defiance. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

That’s definitely true; even between the two of them and halfway digest as he is, the bastard weighs a tonne, and Berlin is about half a dozen klicks past the point of false modesty.

“Damn right,” she grumbles. “And what’s in it for me, huh? A _‘good job’_ from Amanda and a pat on the head from your caveman of a father?” She shakes her head. “Just what I always wanted.”

Irisa sighs. “Isn’t it enough to know that we’re doing the right thing?” she asks, and the real sincerity in her voice damn near makes Berlin sick; she really, genuinely believes that shtako.

“Not even close,” she says, honest and bitter in equal measure. “The right thing never did a chupping thing for me, so why the hell should I do it any favours?”

“I don’t know,” Irisa says softly. “Because it’s right.”

“Nope. Not good enough.” She wishes she had the strength to sound as angry as she feels, and she wishes that Irisa would stop looking at her like that, like she can see just how deep that anger goes. “To be perfectly blunt, Irisa, your ‘thank you’ can kiss my ass.”

“It would.” She whispers it, like a dirty secret. “If you’d let it.”

Berlin’s mouth goes dry, but she wills herself not to let it show. She forces a laugh instead, a hollow broken sound that feels like a belt pulled tight across her throat, the kind of strangled warble an animal might make just before it drowns.

“Go chup yourself,” she manages after a moment. “I might not be so willing to do it for you next time.”

Irisa swallows, loudly enough that Berlin can hear it even over the sound of their heavy breathing. It’s hard work, hauling a body, and they’re both gasping. Apparently that’s not enough to quiet the dirty thoughts, though, and when Irisa turns away, studying the horizon again as though she never stopped, Berlin can see that her pupils are dilating all over again. _Well, good,_ she thinks, clenching her jaw. _Let her spend a little time squirming too._

It’s a long moment before either of them speak. Irisa’s clearly trying to control her breathing, focusing in on the horizon line like it’s a lifeline, and Berlin is trying real hard not to smirk as she watches the flush rise up her neck. It’s difficult not to think about the pulse between her legs, the sticky discomfort that won’t be banished by staring artfully into the distance, but the cruel pleasure she gets from seeing Irisa worked up is enough to keep her under control. It’s enough, for now, that she’s not suffering alone… just as long as she doesn’t think too hard about what it means to think of Irisa in the same sentence as ‘not alone’.

When Irisa does speak, what feels like a decade later, her voice is sad again. “You don’t have to be like this.”

Berlin doesn’t miss the way her voice hitches on _this_. She swallows, but it doesn’t stop her voice from coming out hoarse and raw. “Sure. Right, yeah. Just put the whole ‘murderer’ thing behind us, and we’ll be the best of friends, right?” 

“I didn’t say that.”

“Of course you didn’t.” This time, when she laughs it comes out like she intends it to, bitter and wet with poison. She glances down, lets her eyes rest on Irisa’s bruised throat. “You wouldn’t want that any more than me. Soul sisters, all happy and wonderful and always getting along. Like you don’t get off on me hurting you. Like you’re not the one coming to me in the middle of the night begging for it. Like you don’t chupping _thrive_ when I’m beating the shtako out of you.” She tries to shake her head, but her neck’s too stiff from lugging the damn dead guy around. “Admit it. You don’t want me to stop being ‘like this’. You want more.”

Irisa takes a shaky breath. “I don’t know what I want.”

“Not my problem,” Berlin says; it takes more effort than she expects to keep her voice hard. “Figure it out on your own time, and stop wasting mine.”

“Is that what _you_ want?” Irisa counters. “Really?”

By sheer force of will, Berlin doesn’t choke. “Shut up.”

“Why?” Her pupils are huge now, so wide that Berlin can scarcely see those pale alien irises at all. “It’s true. You get off on it too.”

“I get off on a lot of things.” Berlin shrugs; it’s true, after all, and not exactly a secret. “I’m resourceful that way.”

Irisa can’t argue, so she doesn’t bother trying. Admittedly, that’s kind of disappointing; this kind of posturing word-fight whatever is a little too vanilla for Berlin’s tastes, a little too crude and easy, but it’s the best they have right now and it keeps her from thinking too hard about the body dangling between them, the blood on their clothes and the ground underneath. She kind of wants to poke at Irisa a little more, press and push and force her to keep going, but the part of her that feels petty is silenced by the part that knows this is mutual. A distraction, right? And a damn good one for both of them.

Loathe as she is to admit it, Irisa’s right about that. For all that she likes to imagine she’s the one calling all the shots, they both know it’s not true. The balance of power between them was never as clearly defined as she let herself believe.

“I don’t get you,” she mutters aloud.

Irisa turns back to face her. She moves a little too quickly, almost dislodging the corpse and sending all three of them tumbling to the ground; it’s a good thing for everyone involved that she still has those damned Irathient reflexes, and she catches herself before things can get too messy. Not that it stops Berlin from glaring at her, of course, nor does it stop Irisa from looking appropriately chagrined.

“Hm?” she manages, abashed.

Berlin rolls her eyes. “You keep saying it wasn’t you. ‘It was the Ark-brain’ or ‘the machine did it’ or whatever alien shtako you’re blaming it on this week, then you turn around and do this.”

She’s not talking about the dead body, and they both know it, but Irisa plays dumb anyway. Of course she does. “It’s the right thing to do,” she says again, very quietly.

“Not that.” Berlin doesn’t add, _and you damn well know it_ , but it’s a close thing. “You strut around like you actually buy the shtak Nolan’s throwing around, convince half the town that you’re this poor little innocent who just got caught in the middle, then as soon as it’s dark you’re spreading yourself open, begging me to you for all those things you insist you didn’t do.” She looks away; she doesn’t trust herself not to lose control if she sees Irisa’s face right now. “What’s the deal with that?”

Irisa’s shoulders tremble, ever so slightly. “It’s complicated.”

“Bullshtak.”

“It is. And you know it too.” She doesn’t sound annoyed or even frustrated, just deeply sad. “You can lie about it all you want, pretend it doesn’t make sense, say you don’t understand, but we both know you do.” Berlin opens her mouth to argue, but Irisa doesn’t give her the chance; she lets the body fall to the ground and whirls to face her. “If you were in my place, you’d be doing exactly the same thing. Looking for someone who looks at you the same way you look at yourself, someone who’s willing to make you hurt for the awful things they see in you, the awful things _you_ see in you.” She smiles, but it’s as sad as her voice. “If you were just a little bit more like me, you’d be _exactly_ like me.”

Berlin swallows hard. It kicks in her chest, the words and the sadness both, resonates with a part of her she thought she left for dead years ago. “Shut up.”

Irisa shrugs. “You’re the one who asked.”

No sense in denying that, and Berlin turns away so Irisa won’t take her silence as concession. The truth of it simmers in her stomach, discomfort that makes her squirm above the waist. Because, yeah, Irisa’s right, righter than Berlin would ever admit to anyone. Fact is, she _does_ understand; she can’t even look at Irisa any more without knowing that this hatred runs both ways, that they’re both getting something out of this.

It wasn’t supposed to be like that. _Complicated_ , just like Irisa says, and about so much more than it ever should have been. It was supposed to be about punishment, maybe even revenge, about Berlin making it really clear that Irisa’s not forgiven, that she won’t ever be forgiven, that even if the whole damn town gets down on its knees and prays to the ‘Goddess of the Badlands’ Berlin never ever will. It was supposed to be a one-way street: Irisa gets hurt, and Berlin gets off. Everybody wins, except the murderer.

That’s not how it’s turned out, though, and not just in the obvious way. Berlin didn’t count on Irisa wanting all of this as well, and she definitely didn’t count on her needing it just as badly as Berlin does. She didn’t count on the masochistic little bitch coming to her in the middle of the night, didn’t count on her begging for it, seeking it out, turning it into something symbiotic, something almost equal. She sure as shtak didn’t count on the way it almost helps, almost makes her feel better to see the flush of not-quite-peace colouring the alien marks on Irisa’s face, to see all the ways her hatred helps Irisa to heal. It wasn’t supposed to do that, and she wasn’t supposed to let it.

This isn’t what it was supposed to be about, but here they are; Irisa is the one coming to her, and Berlin… well. She’s just doing the same thing she always does: beating her problems to a pulp and wondering why that doesn’t make them go away.

And that’s just it, isn’t it? It’s not supposed to make her feel better when they don’t go away. It’s not supposed to make her feel more alive when they come back than when they fade away. It’s supposed to make things worse, the fact that Irisa relishes the colours Berlin splashes across her face, but it doesn’t. It just makes her feel like this is something that’s hers, like she _owns_ the parts of Irisa that come to her, the parts that bleed and smile when they lick away the blood. It makes her feel like she’s got a claim to something no-one else knows about, not even Nolan. It makes her feel possessive, and that in turn makes her feel powerful. And no, it’s not what this was supposed to be, not even close, but isn’t it enough that it’s working?

She doesn’t know. Maybe she shouldn’t care. Still, she does.

“So what now?” It’s her voice, but she didn’t give it permission to ask the question. “You keep coming to me, I keep roughing you up, Nolan keeps threatening to kill me?”

Irisa’s lips curl, and she chuckles. “I thought you said you could take him.”

“I could. Will, if I have to.” She smiles too, but it’s harder than Irisa’s and sharper at the edges. “Doesn’t mean I want to. Amanda’s riding my ass hard enough as it is, and I don’t want to give her another reason to bar me from the NeedWant.”

Irisa crouches next to the body, lashes shadowing her eyes as she looks down. “You worry too much.”

“Who said I was worried?” Berlin stands over her, legs spread about a handspan too wide. With Irisa on her knees like that, bruised cheek brushing the seam of her pants, it’s all too easy to pretend that the balance of power between them really is skewed in her favour. “I’m just being practical. I like to know where I’m going.”

“All right.” Irisa hoists the body over her shoulder again, shoves his legs at Berlin. “We’re going back to Defiance.”

*

It’s not exactly a warm welcome when they do get back.

Shouldn’t have expected one, really, though it would’ve been nice to be met with a cup of something hot (or, better, strong) and a round of applause, rather than worried looks from Amanda and jaw-clenching scowls from Nolan. Berlin is beyond pissed off and beyond exhausted, and is it really so damn much to ask for someone, just once, to even pretend that they’re happy to see her?

In Amanda’s defence, she at least has to decency to look relieved, if not especially cheerful. No surprise, there; they both look like the bad side of hell, and no doubt she’s in full-on Mayor Mode, running off the thousand or more disaster-level situations that might have kept them out so long, or at the very least account for the dead guy swinging between them. She’s a strategist first and foremost, and that shines through in the look on her face, her body language, everything. In an odd sort of way, it makes Berlin feel more at home than she has in a long time. If nothing else, next to Nolan’s clenched jaw, it’s as close to a win as she could reasonably hope for.

For his part, he’s just flat-out pissed. He takes one look at his precious daughter, all bleeding and battered and definitely not walking straight, and of course he thinks he understands everything. To hell with the corpse, to hell with the fact that Berlin isn’t exactly the picture of health herself, to hell with all the actual evidence; he’s made up his tiny caveman mind, and that’s as much thinking as he’s capable of.

He comes at her the instant the stasis net is down, charging in like the monkey he is, spitting out threats and warnings with a gun in one hand and the other balled into a fist. In another situation, it might almost be funny, that trigger-happy nonsense that doesn’t fool anyone, but Berlin is about ten klicks and six dead hellbugs past the point of finding anything funny at all.

“Put that thing away,” she says, and shoves the corpse at him. Not the most diplomatic of greetings, probably, but given their usual standards it’s practically civil. “And make yourself useful.”

Well, semi-civil, anyway. Civil enough for Amanda, anyway, and it’s a relief beyond words that she doesn’t round on all three of them and tell them all to play nice. She’s focused in on the body, like any sane person would be, and though she must have noticed that neither Irisa nor Berlin is faring much better than he is, still she sticks to the stuff that really matters, eyes darkening with fresh worry.

“What the hell happened?” Her voice is clipped, professional, but there’s no masking the thread of panic. “VC?”

“Hellbugs,” Irisa mutters, eyes on the ground. Then, somewhat unnecessarily, “We couldn’t save him.”

“I can see that,” Nolan says, and despite the weight of the body in his arms he relaxes a little; no doubt he’s just happy that the threat was something minor, that his VC conspiracy theory isn’t as far off the ground as he thinks. “Looks like you gave ’em hell, at least.”

“One of us did,” Berlin says acidly.

Amanda quirks a curious brow, but Nolan’s expression turns to steel. He looks pointedly at Irisa’s face, the swelling and the damage and the grime, and the threat is obvious in his voice when he says, “Guessing they returned the favour?”

He doesn’t say _‘that’d better be what happened’_ , but they all know that’s what he’s thinking. It’s painfully pointed, the way he says it, or would be if Berlin gave a damn. As it is, she couldn’t care less what he thinks about her, so she rolls her eyes and pretends she doesn’t notice his less-than-subtle attitude.

“Looks that way.”

Amanda shoots Nolan a sharp _not-now-you-idiot_ sort of look. She’s clearly just glad everyone’s back in one piece, and would probably throw herself in front of the idiot cowboy’s gun herself if she thought it would keep the peace. Given the nightmares Defiance has been through in recent months, she’s probably past the point of caring how tattered or tarnished that peace is, so long as no-one’s bleeding through bullet holes. Emotional wounds can heal, but lost limbs don’t come back (or so she said to Berlin more than once in those dark days after the E-Rep left), and they’ve both seen enough people freeze to death in the weeks they had without power. It’s worth putting the other stuff behind them for a moment or two, worth celebrating even a minor victory when it’s the only one they’ve got.

“Good work,” she says, to Berlin and Irisa both. “It can’t have been easy, dragging him all the way back. I’m sure his family will appreciate it.”

“They’d better,” Berlin blurts out before she can stop herself.

Amanda and Nolan both stare at her. She’s looking worried, he’s just annoyed, and they’re both as unwelcome as each other. Berlin doesn’t have the patience to deal with the staring, the judgement for being inappropriate or unsympathetic. She’d like to see even Amanda, paragon of nobility that she is, smile and talk about the greater good after what feels like a lifetime lugging a stinking corpse through slush and dirt with the woman she hates. She’d like to see Nolan crow about Han Solo heroics after his partner froze up and left him to do all the hard work, save both of their damn lives and still have more to do. She’d like to see either one of them come out of the shtako she’s been through today with their chupping compassion intact.

Nolan looks like he wants to say something, probably throw out another empty threat, but he holds himself in check. Probably more worried about Irisa than pissed at Berlin, and she’s almost grateful when he turns away and starts fussing over his useless little daughter instead. The congratulations and accolades he plies her with are sour and crude; they stick in Berlin’s throat and make her want to lash out again, but she bites her tongue and digs her heels into the dirt and refuses to give him the satisfaction.

She cuts a glance at Irisa, studies the lines of her face, the angry bruise where she kicked her after their tumble, the half-dried blood at the corner of her mouth, the cracks in her lips traced with tongue and teeth, the mark on her throat where Berlin sucked her dry. She watches the way the wounds shift as she speaks, telling sordid stories that Nolan won’t ever hear; Irisa’s got that butter-wouldn’t-melt cute thing going on, the sweet-and-innocent face she always wears when talking to her father, and Berlin feels a sharp wet throb to think of all the not-so-cute things sweet and innocent Irisa begs her to do.

“You okay?”

Berlin damn near jumps out of her skin. Amanda, of course, because who else in present company would care enough to ask? She’s standing very close, long limbs brushing against the places where Berlin is entirely too sensitive, and no doubt she thinks she’s helping when she lays a hand on the small of her back, another on her arm, and smiles in the way that real friends do.

Berlin clears her throat and pulls away, puts some distance between them. “Fine,” she says, straightening her coat and trying not to stammer. “You try taking on a swarm of hellbugs single-handed and dragging a chupping corpse for a thousand klicks, see how chipper you are.”

“It wasn’t a thousand klicks,” Irisa murmurs. She sounds sullen, but she’s flushing to the roots of her hair, and a quick glance at Nolan makes it real clear that he didn’t miss the ‘single-handed’ part. No doubt they’ll be having words about that as soon as they’re alone. “You don’t have to be so dramatic.”

Berlin snorts a bitter, humourless laugh. “Look who’s talking,” she says. “I’m not the one who—”

“That’s enough.” Amanda again, raising her voice in that way she does sometimes, the way that suggests anyone stupid enough to challenge her will be taken out back and shot on the spot. “Good work, Irisa. Go home, get cleaned up, maybe take a nap.”

“Or a long walk off a short—”

“Berlin!”

“Okay, okay.” She rolls her eyes, turns to Irisa. “Good work, deputy.”

The words are dripping with sarcasm and insincerity; you’d have to be worse than an idiot to swallow that shtak, but apparently it’s enough to placate Amanda and Nolan. Amanda squeezes her arm, appreciative and restraining at the same time, and when Nolan grunts his acknowledgement it’s fractionally less spiteful than usual. Not quite a ‘thank you’, not from either of them, but it’s more than she expected. For now, at least, it’ll do. Another job well done, right? And hopefully there’s a hot shower in it for her sometime soon.

Not yet, anyway. Amanda’s still got her by the arm, and there’s a serious intensity in the way she leans in and murmurs, “You’re with me.”

Berlin sighs.

*

They end up at the NeedWant.

That’s unexpected, to say the least. Berlin had assumed they’d be heading to the mayor’s office, or else maybe the lawkeeper’s; going by the look on her face as they strode back into town, she wouldn’t have been completely surprised to find herself tossed into a jail cell to ‘cool down’ or some such nonsense. Instead, she finds herself here, surrounded by the soft colours and rich liquor that she loves so much, taking advantage of Amanda’s reputation to jostle her way past clients and workers alike in a rush to the bar.

Amanda doesn’t say anything, but of course she doesn’t need to; like always, her face says it all. Right now, she’s wearing Berlin’s single least favourite look, the one that says she’s doing her some kind of massive favour. She is, honestly, but she doesn’t need to be so damn smug about it On another day, Berlin might have given her a little hell for that, but right now she’s so relieved to be within spitting distance of a goddamn drink that she’d jump through almost any hoops Mayor Rosewater set up ten times over.

Then again, maybe it shouldn’t have surprised her as much as it does; Amanda’s love of the good stuff isn’t exactly a secret to anyone, no more than Berlin’s own appetites, and it could just be that she needs a drink herself after pacing outside the stasis net for hours on end. Perks of being the mayor, Berlin supposes, that no-one bothers to question where she chooses to do business. Could be a bit of both; turns out they’re more alike than either of them would have suspected on first meeting, and if there’s anyone in Defiance perfectly tuned to recognise the _one-of-those-days_ aura radiating off Berlin, it would be the woman who’s given off more than a handful of those herself.

Whatever the reason, she doesn’t skimp on the finery; no sooner have they plonked themselves down at the bar than she’s signalling the tender for a bottle from the top shelf.

“Just this once,” she says, but Berlin notes that she’s just as eager to fill her own glass. Definitely a bit of both, she thinks. “From the look of you, I’d guess it was a three-shot-debrief sort of mission?”

Berlin chuckles dryly. She knocks back the first glass in a single swallow, grimaces, and immediately gestures for another. “Better make it four.”

As so-called debriefs go, it’s not much of one, though the shots definitely help. Fact is, there’s nothing to say that Amanda hasn’t already pieced together from their previous conversation, and in better detail than Berlin could choke out. Hellbugs and their victim-turned-lunch, Irisa being a bleeding-heart pain in the ass and putting on the puppy-dog eyes, Berlin trying and failing to be the calm voice of reason in the face of infuriating Irathient guilt-trips.

She leaves out the beatings and the sex for obvious reasons — not because she’s ashamed, but because she wants to keep this professional — though she has a suspicion she’s wasting her energy. If the look on Amanda’s face is anything to go by she has a pretty decent idea of where those bruises really came from; she’s probably faced enough hellbugs in her time to know the difference between a bug’s bite and a damn hickey. Still, if she has noticed she’s polite and professional enough not to mention it. Good, Berlin thinks. Some dirty secrets taste sweeter when they’re kept that way.

Luckily for them both, Amanda’s smart enough to keep Irisa out of the conversation entirely until they’re both halfway to giggling drunk, and when she does mention her, it’s carefully and with a deliberate softness in her voice.

“You said ‘single-handed’,” she says, and Berlin is less than impressed by the way she’s hardly slurring at all. “What did you mean? You weren’t alone out there, and we both know Irisa’s a dead shot against anything.”

Berlin stares down into her glass. Amanda must have some idea, or she wouldn’t have asked the question. Easy enough to chalk it up to hot air or a battle of egos, Berlin insisting that she did all the hard work and Irisa being too annoyed to argue. It’d be a fair assumption if she had, but either Amanda’s been talking to Nolan about this stuff, or else she’s much more perceptive than most people give her credit for, because the look on her face makes it pretty obvious that she knows more than she’s letting on.

Berlin grunts, shrugs, and scowls into her glass. “Choked,” she says, like that explains everything.

It doesn’t, apparently, because Amanda nudges her in the ribs, frowning. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.” She doesn’t mean to sound so bitter, but it’s hard to play nice when she’s remembering the taste of hellbug breath. “Funny, right? Stabs her ex-boyfriend to death, drops an Ark on a goddamn city without even breaking a sweat, but hellbugs? More like ‘hell, no’.” She chuckles wryly at her own joke, reaches for the bottle. “ _Funny_.”

Amanda stops her. “Berlin.”

“What? How am I supposed to know what’s going on in her head?” She hopes Amanda won’t see the evasion there, the parts of her that know precisely what was going on in Irisa’s head, the part that remembers with video-camera clarity the conversation they had before, of guns and guilt and _Tommy_. “She runs her mouth about saving dead idiots, about getting him back to his family for a funeral or some such bullshtak, but when it all went down she choked. Left me to do all the hard work, then cried like a baby when I told her to leave the idiot behind.”

It’s at least eighty per cent true. Amanda doesn’t need to know about the stuff that happened between, and a lie of omission isn’t really a lie at all, is it?

Lucky for them both, she doesn’t seem to care enough about the details to start prying. She’s frowning down at her own empty glass, like she’s fighting back the urge to fill them both up again. “Choked,” she echoes after a moment, like the word has some hidden meaning or something that Berlin wasn’t previously aware of. “She just… what? Seized up?”

Berlin shrugs, plays it as cool as she can, and thinks about booze burning in her throat instead of Irisa burning in other places. “Something like that.”

“Does Nolan know about this?” It’s a rhetorical question, and one that Berlin suspects they both know the answer to; still, she opens her mouth to answer it anyway, because Amanda’s the mayor and she asked a question. She doesn’t get the chance, though; Amanda cuts her off, carrying on like she was talking to herself the whole time. “No. He wouldn’t have sent her out there if he did.”

“Better not do it again, either,” Berlin gripes. “Not with me, anyway.”

Amanda frowns at that, then seems to shake herself out of her thoughts, like she’s remembering for the first time who she’s there with, that Berlin is not just her lawkeeper but someone she’s been trying to call a friend, someone she’s almost called family, and someone she that knows has had some very serious issues with Irisa. Took her long enough to get there, Berlin thinks, but it’s hard to be annoyed when she drops everything the moment she does. She softens right through, practically turning into someone completely different, someone not like the mayor at all.

For a moment, if only one, she’s just Amanda Rosewater, the woman who convinced a messed-up E-Rep soldier to give a chance to a town she hated, a town that hated her as well, the woman who stuck a badge on her chest and called her ‘lawkeeper’, who called her ‘friend’ as well and didn’t laugh when Berlin asked where the badge was for that. Berlin doesn’t know how to feel when she puts a hand on her shoulder, but it’s those old buried instincts that make her flinch and pull away, the parts of her that have long since learned that friendship is hard and empathy can hurt.

“Jess.”

Berlin clenches her jaw, shakes her head. She has to shut her eyes for a few seconds, count to ten real slow, and remind herself that she’s here, that Amanda is her boss as well, that some part of this empathy comes from the need to make sure she does her job right. It shouldn’t help, should make the whole thing taste sour, but it doesn’t. It breaks it down, makes it easier, helps her to pretend this is strictly business.

“What?”

Amanda doesn’t reach for her again, though Berlin can tell she wants to. “How was it?” she asks, pressing ever so gently. “Working together?”

Berlin cuts a pointed glance towards the liquor bottle. “Need more than a couple of shots to answer that one,” she says, and tries not to think about the throbbing between her legs.

Amanda, naturally, interprets the sullenness in the only way that makes sense to her, given what she knows. Berlin’s squirmy discomfort must be pretty obvious by this point, but Amanda only knows about the hatred and the malice, and so that’s what she sees.

“No chance of reconciliation, then?” she asks, and sighs. The disappointment in her voice is almost funny, like this is something personal, like it’s her damn fault that Berlin can’t get along with the woman who caused so much pain.

“Didn’t say that,” Berlin grunts.

She didn’t _not_ say it either, of course, but she can’t stomach the thought of letting Amanda walk out of here like that, all slumped shoulders and melancholy and misplaced self-blame. It’s not her fault that things are messy between her lawkeeper and her sort-of not-quite boyfriend’s daughter, not any more than it’s Nolan’s fault that his kid is a murdering masochist with terrible taste in coping methods. As heartless as Berlin can be sometimes (most of the time, truthfully), she has never been the kind of woman who could pin her own issues on someone else.

Well. Nolan, maybe, if he points that gun in her face one more time, but Amanda is a different story entirely. Amanda, who has only ever shown her kindness and compassion, who always tried to do right by her even when she had no reason to. Amanda, who gave her a chance when she had a thousand reasons or more to want her gone, to kick her out of her precious town without so much as a thought. Amanda, who saw someone in pain and gave them something to live for. Berlin owes Amanda a hell of a lot; she knows that all too well, and as much as she hates it when that debt gets dangled in front of her like a carrot on a stick she won’t deny that it exists, and she won’t make things harder for a woman who has it hard enough already.

Half-hearted as it is, Amanda seems to appreciate the compromise, the words if not the lie weighing heavy behind them. “I’m not asking for miracles,” she says. “I just… god knows, I understand how you feel about her. You know I do.”

Berlin doesn’t say anything. She’s staring down at the bottle, wondering how many shards she could shatter it into, and how many of them would be big enough to hold against Irisa’s throat.

“Jess.”

“I don’t know, okay?” She blurts it out real fast, frustration and helplessness taking hold of her voice before she can stop them, and it’s only when Amanda’s expression twists into a mask of confusion that she realises she never asked a question. Still, it’s too late to go back now, and she rushes swiftly on. “Look. You talk all this shtak about reconciliation and forgiveness or whatever else, like it’s that easy. Just make peace with it all and move on. But it’s _not_ that easy. Not for me, and not…” It hurts to admit it, even just inside her head, and saying it out loud makes her head ache worse than the last seven months’ worth of hangovers. “Not for her either.”

Amanda frowns. “What do you mean?”

Berlin wants to scream. “You think I’m the only one this works for? You think I’m the only one who wants… who _needs_ …” Her voice is shaking, and so are her hands, gripping the bar like it’s the only thing holding her upright. “You’re wrong. You and Nolan… hell, this whole damn town. You think you know what it’s like for her, for me, for either one of us, but you don’t. People like us don’t work the same as people like you. We don’t work things out like you do. And you can’t… you can’t just sit there and ask me to… ask _us_ to…” She swallows hard, squeezes the edge of the bar to keep from reaching for the bottle and squeezing it instead. “It doesn’t work like that. At least… at least, not now.”

“Okay.” It doesn’t really sound okay at all. It sounds like the opposite of okay. “I understand.”

“Do you?” Berlin tries not to think too hard about Amanda’s own issues, about her sister and the Tarrs and all the hell that goes with that. It’s easier, she thinks, when the murderers involved were criminals and liars in the first place, easier when the lines of right and wrong are clear-cut and immoveable, but of course she doesn’t have the heart to point that out. “Look. It’s not a problem, okay? I can’t promise you much, but I can give you that. It’s just…” And there it is, exactly what Irisa’s been saying all along, that damn word that churns like acid in her stomach. “It’s _complicated_.”

Amanda snorts, a crude half-laugh. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

“You asked.”

“I did. And I appreciate you telling me. Or, well, trying to. You’re not very good at this.”

“That makes two of us.”

Another laugh, but this one’s a little more sincere. “Good point.” She sighs, leans in until their faces are touching. Her cheek is smooth and cool against Berlin’s, clean lines and clean skin pressed to the places where Irisa’s blood feels all but burned in. “You’re a good person, Jess. A good lawkeeper, a good friend. You’re a lot of good things. And I’d hate to see you throw all that away on something like…” She wants to say _‘her’_ , Berlin can tell, but she cuts the word off before it can break. “…like _this_.”

“I’m not throwing anything away.” It comes out a little more defensively than she intended, but she can’t take it back now. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Neither of them ask _‘for how long?’_ , but they’re both thinking it. Amanda’s wondering if this thing with Irisa will get in the way of the delicate rapport that Berlin has with her, this fragile little pseudo-friendship that they’re still building together and the broken-down shell of a town that’s depending on them to protect it. She’s wondering if any of this means she’ll have to keep a closer eye on her, if it means she’ll have to start second-guessing the badge she put on her chest, and the faith it represents. She’s wondering a lot of serious, long-reaching things, and Berlin’s wondering… well, just as many, honestly. Long-reaching, yeah, and serious too, but not all of hers have anything to do with Irisa or Amanda. They’re her own, private and personal, and she keeps them locked up safe and tight in a place so well hidden that no amount of top-shelf will ever expose them.

“You’re still here,” Amanda says after a long moment; the words are agreeable, but her smile is already much thinner than it was even a moment ago. “And I hope it’ll stay that way. I really, really do. I…” She leans in, just a little too close, and Berlin finds herself caught between reciprocity and panic. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

She’s hugging her, then, fierce and hard and warm, and Berlin doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know if it’s appropriate to hug back, doesn’t even know if she wants to.

Amanda’s arms are incredibly strong. She smells of godawful perfume and really great booze, and she hugs like someone who has only ever seen harshness from behind a wall or a door or a cage; she’s got some rough edges too, but they’re sanded down, smoothed over and turned into something soft and sensual, something sweet. She wears them well, either through training or by necessity, and she knows how to use them for good instead of harm. She’s everything Irisa could never be, everything Berlin could never be, and it would be so damn easy to take advantage of that.

Easy, right? So easy to turn her face an inch or two to the side, just a little, just enough. So easy to find the taste of top-shelf on pink-painted lips, to call it an indiscretion or a moment of weakness, blame the booze and laugh it off, or else smile and lick the corners of her mouth and say _‘you wanna go upstairs?’_. So easy to wash away the wetness still clinging to her thighs, to pass the time with someone who tries, someone who cares, someone who looks at her and sees a friend, sees family, sees so many things she’ll never be. So easy to enjoy herself in a way that’s healthy, a way that’s _good_ , to balm the bruises on her knuckles with silks and smiles and softness.

So damn easy, yeah, but the thought leaves her cold. It doesn’t ignite, doesn’t even flicker. There’s nothing in her when she thinks of it, even when she lets her imagination run wild, even when it turns the silk to knots and the softness to slaps; it should make her feel something, at least, but it doesn’t. Silks and smiles and softness have never been enough for her, even at their most sordid. Amanda is so many things, but she will never be what Berlin needs. And maybe that’s another thing Irisa understands, another thing they both do, another thing that’s mutual and symbiotic between them. Neither of them could survive like this, breathing in time with someone who thought they were good. Too much softness would kill them.

So, yeah. Maybe it would be easy. Maybe it’d even feel okay for an hour or two before the booze wore off and the nausea set in. Maybe. But she doesn’t do it. She turns her head, yeah, but she turns it the other way instead, away from Amanda’s face, the smell of perfume and the taste of liquor. She pulls back, all the way back, and tries a little too hard to smile, a little too hard to be a little too soft.

“You worry too much,” she says, and hears Irisa’s voice telling her the same damn thing.

Amanda takes the lie for what it is, cold comfort and a smile that doesn’t fit her mouth. There’s no way she can’t see the conflict in her, the tension and the discomfort; she has to know the twists and turns Berlin’s mind has been taking, but just like before she doesn’t mention it. Maybe it’s a friendship thing, knowing when to keep quiet, or maybe that’s just a level of intimacy she doesn’t want to deal with right now. Either way, she returns the gesture with a squeeze of her hand and a fingernail circling the rim of her glass.

“It’s my job,” she says, like that’s all this ever was.

“Better than mine,” Berlin grumbles. She means it as a joke, but it doesn’t sound like one at all. “At least you didn’t spend your day dragging corpses back from the ass end of nowhere…”

_…or screwing murderers_.

She doesn’t say that part aloud, of course, but if the look on Amanda’s face is anything to go by she heard it just the same. Or, well, heard something close to it, anyway, because she’s narrowing her eyes and that sharp smile of hers is twisting into something different, something that’s calculating and compassionate at the same time. She won’t talk about this either, Berlin knows, but it’s enough that she’s seeing it, enough that Berlin is allowing herself to be so damn transparent, so damn easy to read. It’s not safe, and it’s not fair that Amanda can see all her dirty little secrets without ever giving away her own. It makes her angry, makes her set her jaw and flash her eyes, a warning without words that says there’s no place for compassion here.

Amanda’s shoulders tighten after a moment, like she heard the warning as well as the weaker things it covered up. “Right,” she says, and the glass squeaks as she circles it again.

“Right,” Berlin mutters, sourness sticking to her tongue.

She watches the way Amanda’s wrist moves, elegant and effortless, and thinks about touching her. A hand on her arm or shoulder, a brush of hair away from her face, any one of a dozen innocent or not-so-innocent gestures to negate Amanda’s compassion by offering a little of her own. She thinks about it, yeah, struggles to find some tiny place inside of her, some dusty abandoned little corner that wants it, that’s even the slightest bit tempted. Contact and compassion, softness and sweetness and _Amanda_. She wants so much to want it, to want her. She’d give anything to want the things she knows she should, to want to be the good person that Amanda sees, the good lawkeeper and the good friend, to accept and offer comfort and compassion and all that other shtako. She wants to want it so badly, but no matter how deep she digs, she doesn’t. It’s not her, and no matter how hard she tries, she can’t even bring herself to wish it was.

Amanda is the one who makes the contact, leaning in to touch her face. It’s a delicate moment, a flutter across the cheek with the backs of her fingers, and it doesn’t mean anything.

“Life isn’t a vacuum, Jess,” she says. “Things change. People, too. No-one’s expecting it to be perfect right now. Tomorrow, maybe, it’ll be a little easier. The day after, maybe a little more.”

She sounds so hopeful, so damn idealistic. Berlin doesn’t have the heart to point out that she doesn’t want any of that, that she’s not ready for things to be easier, that ‘easy’ is the opposite of everything she needs right now. She doesn’t have the heart to say, either, that the same rings true for Irisa, that this symbiotic violence between them is the only thing keeping either one of them from an early grave, that all this hate and hurt is better for both of them than all the reconciliation in the world.

Most of all, she doesn’t have the heart to say that it scares the hell out of her, the thought that one day she might wake up and not feel like this, that one day she might open her eyes and see a world she doesn’t hate, a world that doesn’t make her want to hurt someone. It freezes her down to her bones, leaves her panting and paralysed, and maybe she could say that, could open herself up and give Amanda a glance into her darkest places, but what’s the point? Amanda is all goodness — a good person with good intentions — and she will never understand what it’s like to not be good, to not _want_ to be good. Putting those feelings into words would only turn that sweet-soft smile into something sad, something stricken, and Berlin definitely doesn’t have the heart to do that.

She doesn’t say that Irisa feels the same way too, that it’s not just Berlin’s hate and violence and fury, that it brings them both so much peace to know that someone else understands how it feels. She doesn’t say that the hate makes her feel healthier than she has since she was a kid, that the violence gives Irisa back the strength the town and its compassion took away. That part is still too raw, and it’s not for Amanda’s sake that she keeps it inside; saying it would make it true, would force her to face the fact that maybe there’s something kind in all of this hatred after all. That might bring some solace to Amanda, but not to Berlin, and she so keeps it locked away in a place she never visits, hidden and secret and hopefully forgotten.

She doesn’t say a lot of things, for want of the heart or the stomach or the strength. What she does say is “Maybe,” and lets Amanda believe that she means it.

Let her believe whatever she wants. Let her believe in things like ‘tomorrow’ and ‘maybe’ and ‘change’ and ‘easier’. Let her believe that compassion and reconciliation is always the best path, that everyone is a good person and everything is simple. Hell, let her believe in chupping fairies if that’s what she needs to get through the night. Whatever it is that gets her through, whatever it is she needs, it doesn’t matter; Berlin won’t take it away.

She’s not a good person. Not even close. But if it keeps Amanda happy and keeps the drinks flowing, she’s more than willing to pretend.

*


	6. Chapter 6

*

Hours later, she’s right back where she started.

For a start, she’s drunk again. Not the light-headed blurred-edges tipsy she gets with Amanda, but full-on room-spinning ceiling-swerving _drunk_ , the kind that blocks out the dark stuff, the kind she’s been falling back on more and more lately. Amanda’s probably right about that, probably has a point when she says that Berlin needs to do something about it, but for now she can’t bring herself to care. Tomorrow, maybe. Just like Amanda said. For now, though, she’s taking what small pleasures she can get, and to hell with the consequences.

The lawkeeper’s office is just like she left it, messy and cramped but good enough for what she needs. It’s not unlike the bottle she’s been necking for the last half-hour; they’re not ideal, nothing like the NeedWant silks or Amanda’s top-shelf single-malt, but they’ll do well enough for now. They’ve never let her down before.

In any case, it’s comforting to be surrounded by so much familiarity, so much that she knows so intimately. The office is her home, the cheap crappy booze her bread and butter; there’s no risk of change in either of them, and that’s exactly how she likes it. Safe, simple, straightforward. She feels like she’s lived this moment a thousand times, like she’s stuck in some twisted alcoholic Groundhog Day where it doesn’t matter that the room’s always spinning because she could find her way around in a blindfold.

Right now, the room’s not the only thing spinning. Her head’s doing a solid rollercoaster impersonation too, not quite enough to be unpleasant just yet but definitely well on its way; it’s that unsteady in-between moment that’ll make or break the rest of the night, and she knows her body well enough to recognise that now is the perfect time to capitalise. Another half-hour or so and it’ll cross the line into full-on misery, into finding herself sprawled on the floor with her ass in the air and her head in a bucket, torn between wanting to die and wanting to start all over again. Another half-hour, maybe a little longer, but right now it’s all about the casual carelessness and self-satisfaction, the heady thrill of too much liquor and not enough common sense. It’s exactly the right place for what she needs.

She’s alone for the time being, but even through the fog she knows it won’t be that way for very long. That’s exactly why she does it.

Well, that and the fact that she’s aching for it. She’s been sticky and uncomfortable for half the goddamn day, counting out the seconds until she can get some damn relief, and she’s just drunk enough to indulge all the twisted reasons why it makes sense to do it here and now and like this. She hasn’t stopped thinking about it — about _her_ — ever since it happened, hasn’t stopped running the image through her head like film stuck in one of her antique projectors. Irisa writhing on the ground, Berlin on top of her, pushing down and in and _there_ (and _there_ and _yes_ and and _there_ ), and she does it now because those visions are just sharp enough, just real enough to get her squirming in her chair. Inhibitions lowered, sensations heightened in all the right places, and why the hell wouldn’t she do it? She’s drunk and horny and she damn well wants to, and isn’t that reason enough?

It is, yeah. But that’s not why she’s facing the door.

She’s really deliberate about it, too, pushing the chair back and spreading herself wide. One foot up on the desk, the other planted on the ground, it’s easy access and a great show at the same time and she milks it for all it’s worth. Because, yeah, any idiot can make an impression, get people watching and talking, but if there’s one thing Berlin knows better than anyone, it’s how to turn impression into an impact; she doesn’t want to get people talking, she wants to leave them speechless, and she’s the best in the business at doing just that. E-Rep propaganda isn’t the only kind of footage she’s got in her resume, after all, and she knows exactly what she’s doing. She knows the medium, she knows her art… and, most important, she knows her audience.

It’s only natural, then, that she takes advantage of what she knows, throwing her head back and squinting up at the ceiling through half-lidded eyes. There’s not much to look at, but that doesn’t really matter; she’s not exactly in this for the view, after all.

(Not the one she’ll be looking at, anyway.)

Holster tossed off to the side, belt pulled loose, pants unbuttoned just right. Enough to get her hand in, not enough to make it comfortable; she wants it tight, wants it visible. It’s nothing she hasn’t done a few hundred times before (in private for her own cameras, in public for someone else’s, whatever the situation calls for), but it’s been a good long while since she had to wait a whole damn day to get going and it takes her by surprise, just how sensitive she is. Her whole body shudders when she cups herself, hips hitching almost of their own accord, and the bitten-off groan that gets out isn’t nearly as deliberate as she’d hoped.

It’s good, though. Good enough that she lets it run away with her for a moment or two, lets her vision bleed out, lets the already-blurred ceiling tilt and sway above her head, lets the next groan take shape higher up in her throat, lets it out in a keening breathless gasp. Good enough that she lets herself let go.

That’s another thing she knows intimately — herself — and she’s not shy about taking advantage of that knowledge too. There’s nothing coy in the way she touches herself, nothing self-conscious in the rhythm she sets, hard and fast and not at all gentle, rough callouses on her fingers and sharp pulses where they press. No doubt most of Defiance’s population would faint away at the thought of doing something like this in a place so open, so much the centre of justice and righteousness for a town that so desperately need it, but Berlin’s not like them and she doesn’t so much as blink. There’s no shame in her, nothing awkward or uneasy at all. Why would there be? Why the hell _should_ there be? Of all the awful things people do to themselves and each other, this is way down on the list of things to get blushy and embarrassed about.

Besides, even if there was some little hesitant corner somewhere in the back of her booze-addled brain, she sure as shtak wouldn’t give anyone else the satisfaction of seeing it. She’s open just like the space, cocksure and confident, and that’s the only way she’d ever want it.

Slowly, _slowly_ , she lets her eyes slide closed, blocking out the drunken swerve of the ceiling, the flickering lights, the familiar walls and floors, blocking out everything except the sensation. She lets her hand lead, fingers finding the best spots by instinct and muscle memory. A little pressure, a little speed, a whole lot of friction, and that’s all she needs. She’s been feeling this almost all day, halfway ready to explode, and she’s pretty sure she could get away with much less than what she gives herself. She draws it out anyway, though, as much for the decadence as for the exhibitionism, the illicit thrill that comes with doing this in a public space, of letting her euphoria be so perfectly exposed.

She imagines a camera filming from above the door, leans back and plays up to it. Mouth open, breath coming in artful little gasps, quick and jerky movements under her clothes; the fabric of her pants shifts in time with the motion, the rough-sharp rustling above and the slick-wet sliding beneath. It’s a lethal combination, the sensation and the sound, and it’s so quiet in here, so silent that she can hear every detail.

Every single detail, yes. Like the ‘click’ of the door. Like the dull thud of boots on the floor, and the way they skid to a stop. Like the sharp intake of breath and the soft lip-bitten whimper.

Berlin doesn’t open her eyes. She doesn’t need to, and in any case she doesn’t want to ruin a perfect moment by moving. (Not above the waist, at any rate.) She just bares her teeth into a primal smirk, quickens her pace, and makes it very clear that she knows exactly who she’s dealing with.

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” she says. The words lodge in her throat like a moan, like a lover’s name.

Irisa doesn’t say anything, of course. Wouldn’t be surprising if she’s incapable of it. She doesn’t move either, at least not that Berlin can hear; she’s a stealthy little thing and it’s definitely not beyond her to move without a sound, but given the circumstances it’s a pretty safe bet that she’s incapable of that as well, that she’s choked and frozen now just like she was out in the Badlands with the damn hellbugs. The comparison is a weird one, especially right now, but it makes Berlin’s blood quicken just the same, heat fuelled by the memory of anger and adrenaline, of blood and bruises and Irisa’s hips.

She lets her head fall back further, all the way back until it hits the wall, and it’s very deliberate when she lets the impact jolt another sound out of her. It’s a half-moaning half-whining thing, and it ignites the stars flashing behind her eyelids. She lets her hand work a little faster, a little harder and a little rougher, tight circles that she knows are incredibly visible. She can feel Irisa’s eyes on her, heat shimmering between them, and she keeps going until she feels herself start to clench, until she has to stop or risk coming too fast, too soon, too early.

 _Not yet,_ she thinks, and fights for breath. “Enjoying the view?”

It’s a struggle to get the words out, to get any words out at all, but it’s worth the strain for the way they sound, heated and desperate and _so close_. She is, yeah, and the sound of Irisa’s breath catching in her throat only makes it worse. Berlin forces her eyes open, finds Irisa’s from across the room. They’re locked on the shifting fabric between her legs, of course, the place where her pants are bunching with the outline of her knuckles and her wrist, the place that’s gone deathly still in the wake of so much moving.

Whether she’s enjoying the view or not, she’s sure not in any hurry to look away, and when she does find the strength to speak the strain in her voice is as heavy as Berlin’s breathing.

“What are you trying to prove?” she asks, ragged and hitching.

Berlin holds her gaze, by pure force of will, bites down on the urge to start moving again. She ignores Irisa’s question, focusing on her own. “Is that a ‘yes’?”

“No.”

Berlin shrugs, or gets as close to one as she can manage given that half her right arm is all but incapacitated. She lets her eyes slide shut again, locks in on the sensation and the sound, the sparks igniting under her fingers and the way the fabric pulls itself taut across her hand, the little hitching noises Irisa’s making; it’s hard to believe the crap she’s spouting when her breath is saying something very different to her tongue. She holds perfectly still for a few moments, drawing the tension as tight as it can get, tight enough that it threatens to snap with or without her help.

It’s only when she can’t help herself that she starts up again. She doesn’t waste time, goes at it as hard and as fast as before, lets Irisa hear and see everything, gives it to her like a gift, all wrapped up and hidden under shifting fabric and rustling, swallowed by open-mouthed moans and the slick slide of skin she can’t see. She doesn’t open her eyes, but she imagines it so vividly that she doesn’t need to: Irisa, open-mouthed and tight-jawed, eyes as round as dinner plates as she stares at Berlin’s pants, watches the fabric twist and shift in rhythm with her hand.

She uses the other one this time too, palming at her breast through her shirt. She finds the nipple with her fingers, works it in a way that leaves nothing to the imagination, all teasing and titillating and entirely for Irisa’s benefit; for herself she likes it rougher, tweaks and pinches and pain, pain, _pain_ , but that’s not exactly viable right now. Besides, the casual little porn-film touches are getting the job done well enough on their own, helped in no small part by Irisa’s needy little whines.

“You sure about that?” she manages.

The question is a whine too, guttural and choking on her own saliva. She didn’t mean for it to sound like that, but she uses it to her advantage anyway, lets it add to the atmosphere, working them both just the way she wants them.

She opens her eyes again after a moment, and finds Irisa’s squeezed shut. She’s got her fists balled at her sides, white-knuckled and shaking, like it’s taking everything she has to keep from shoving them both down her own pants, joining in, in a weird mutual-masturbation sort of deal. _Gotcha_ , Berlin thinks, and lets her own moans rise up, loud and long and urgent, drowning out Irisa’s completely.

That works too, a little too well. Irisa chokes, grits out her name. _“Berlin,”_ like the dirtiest kind of curse-word, all desperation and strain; the sound alone is almost enough to finish the job, but Berlin won’t ever let that happen. Doesn’t matter what she does, what either of them do; she won’t let Irisa be the one to make her come. It’s the one thing she won’t budge on, the one thing she won’t allow to change. So, no. She grits her teeth, stills her fingers, holds herself in limbo until the clenching eases up, until she can breathe again without feeling those telltale spasms.

“Door’s right there.” She takes a breath, shuddering and strangled, then flicks her nipple to jolt her next words into a gasp. “No-one’s forcing you to stay.”

“I…”

“Mm.”

It’s another gasp shaped into a word (or, well, a sort-of word anyway), but it works well enough. Irisa’s eyes snap open, heat and want and those damned dilated pupils; she’s damn near smouldering, and the sight of her makes Berlin’s mouth go dry.

“Yeah.” She swallows hard, wets her lips, holds her voice as steady as she can. “That’s what I thought.”

She must have closed her eyes again, if only for a moment, because the next thing she knows Irisa’s standing over her. Not just close, but _right there_ , legs pressed against Berlin’s thighs and hands on her shoulders. She’s all over her, unapologetic and unabashed, and Berlin realises with a jolt like a charge-blade that it’s probably the first time they’ve been this close to each other with Irisa as the taller one; the difference between them isn’t much when they’re standing, but Berlin knows how to use it well, and she’s very good at making herself seem a whole lot taller than she actually is.

At this angle, though, with Berlin all seated and spread open and Irisa standing stiff and straight, the little bitch all but towers over her. She’s lean, limber, and just as good at using her height as Berlin is. Under normal circumstances, she might consider working with the power shift, turning it into a game — a little BDSM here, a little begging there; she’s not above doing the dirty if it works — but this is as far from normal as she’s ever been. When it’s them, when it’s _her_ , ‘normal’ is a whole chupping universe away, and Berlin won’t ever let the bitch make her feel small. Not now, not ever. Doesn’t matter how hot it is when she leans in like that, doesn’t matter that her breath hits all the right places, her ear and her jaw and her neck. Doesn’t matter that it feels so damn good when she uses her legs to force Berlin’s even further apart, spreading her wider until the stretch turns to a burn, until the burn turns to pain, until—

“Back off.”

It’s a warning, but Irisa ignores it. She just nudges Berlin’s legs again, pushes her muscles to their breaking point. Berlin halfway expected that, to be honest, but it fires her blood as much as if she hadn’t; the challenge gets her going almost harder than the proximity, the friction as she presses against her, grinding with her whole body, the sudden alien pressure in places that Berlin doesn’t have enough hands to reach herself. Her head falls back again, of its own accord this time, throat exposed in a way she’d never allow if she was in control, and she half-expects Irisa to bend forward, suck it bruise-dark, put a mark of her own on the skin she’s not allowed to play with, but she doesn’t. She just leans in until her teeth touch the curve of Berlin’s ear, the threat so much sharper than the contact.

“Make me.”

She really should have seen this coming. It’s always been there in the back of her mind, how much pushing and shoving Irisa could take before her Irathient instincts kicked in and made her push back. It’s always been a question, no matter how hard she’s tried to keep from thinking about it, the flicker of doubt that always secretly knew this was not as one-sided as she let herself pretend, that she was never the one with all the power in this… relationship? situation? dynamic? Whatever the hell it is. Irisa’s the one coming to her, the one begging for that violence that Berlin dishes out so eagerly; she’s been calling the shots almost from the beginning, so maybe it stands to follow that she’d start calling the shots in other ways, hitting back in places that make Berlin feel too.

Yeah, she should’ve seen it coming. Maybe she did; maybe that’s why she’s been pushing both of their limits the way she has. This was never about getting off; that, she could’ve done in two minutes. A couple of fingers and a well-placed thumb, she’d be flying. But no. She made it into a show, a performance for a camera that was never there, because she knew this would happen, knew that Irisa would show up hungry for more… because she knew that she’d show up hungry for _her_.

She doesn’t like to think about how this has changed, how it’s not just about hate or hurt any more, how it’s turned into something deeper and darker. Irisa takes a lot, not because Berlin makes her (and there it is again, _“make me,”_ hot like a promise in her ear) but because she needs it too, because they both need the same thing from each other, the same breed of pain and punishment. Berlin likes to use her fists; on people, on things, on anything or anyone who’ll stand still long enough. It’s how she thrives, how she stays alive. Irisa needs someone who isn’t afraid to make her bleed, yeah, but she has her own kind of violence too, that seething simmering place inside of her that’s still too raw to accept shtako like _‘it was a machine’_ or _‘Ark-brain made me do it’_.

She’s caught between both of those places, the part that wants to feel pain and the part that only knows how to inflict it, and Berlin knows more about that than she’d ever admit. More than just that, though, she knows how good a little pain can feel. So, yeah. Maybe she did see it coming. She sure as shtak invited it, didn’t she? And maybe she’s been itching for this moment from the very first time Irisa wandered in here and started begging for it.

Maybe. Probably. But right now, who the hell cares?

She leaps to her feet. The chair topples back, clattering noisily to the floor, but they both ignore it. The momentum pushes their bodies impossibly close, limbs and hair and clothing tangled together, but Berlin doesn’t bother trying to separate them; she uses what she’s got, driving Irisa back and back and back, slamming her shoulders against the wall and surging up to take her mouth.

Her hand’s still there, still _there_ ; there’s no space between them to pull out, and she wouldn’t even if she could. She’s too far gone, too desperate and hungry and she needs the friction too damn much to give it up now. Besides, she has another hand, and she doesn’t need more than one free for this. She curls it around Irisa’s throat, lets her fingers dig in where she’s already left her mark, pressure and possession against the bruise-dark brand, palm flat to the spot where the belt pulled tight. She holds her there, grips tight with one hand and works on herself with the other, and if she lets her hips buck a little too eagerly against Irisa’s, the sharp points pressing just right against her knuckles, if she lets herself lift and grind against her, if she lets her body take just a splash or two of pleasure from Irisa’s… well, that’s between her and her conscience.

Irisa doesn’t protest. She doesn’t laugh either, which is honestly something of a surprise. Berlin was halfway expecting her to take this as a victory, to turn Berlin’s leverage against her and twist it to her own advantage — _‘didn’t I say you needed me too?’_ or something like that — but she doesn’t. She just moans as her head slams back, tightens her body in all the places where Berlin’s rocking against her, lets it go slack and limp in all the others, whimpers into Berlin’s mouth and lets her do whatever the hell she wants.

And, yeah, Berlin does exactly that. Hating Irisa for making it happen, hating herself for letting it, hating how quickly the situation got turned around, hating the part of her that knew it would, that _wanted_ it to. Hating both of them at the same time, still at this point it’s more than she can do to control her body. She’s too far gone, and so is Irisa, because, yeah, apparently she’s just that damn good at what she does; they’re both halfway blind, too damn desperate to care how they got here or why, too strung out and worked up on the fact that it’s them, that it shouldn’t feel like this, that it shouldn’t _be_ like this. It’s clean and simple — violent, yeah, and messy as hell, but it makes so much sense she can scarcely stand it. There’s no biting, no bruising or blood, no threats or curses or seething; there’s none of the stuff they’ve thrived on until now, but it’s still so much a part of them, so much a part of what they mean to each other that it doesn’t matter at all.

Berlin comes hard, choking her climax against Irisa’s lips, curses and cries lost to the teeth biting down on her tongue, to the wet panting against the roof of her mouth, to the press of bony Irathient limbs in all the places where she’s on fire. Her hand’s wedged between their bodies, still too tight to pull back; it pushes and pulls, presses until it hurts, until she’s too sensitive, until the pleasure spirals down into pain and the pain drives her over the edge again. Irisa’s hands are all over her, hot and feverish, body stretched out taut and tight; she doesn’t move at all, but Berlin sure does, jerking on top of her in quick, messy spasms.

It takes everything she has to stay on her feet when it’s done. She’s aching all over, worn out in the way that always goes with really good sex, and she has to fight against the need to go boneless, to slide down onto the floor and just _sigh_. It’s a real effort, a force of strength she doesn’t really have, but she does it, keeps herself upright by pure chupping stubbornness. Whatever this was, whatever Irisa might have done, Berlin will not let the little bitch think that she made it better.

She slumps forward, though, not because it’s any more acceptable but because it’s more than she can do to stop it; there’s nothing left in her now, and she’s too damn satisfied to even hold her head up. She presses her forehead against the surface of the wall, cool and cracked, and lets her mouth fall open slack-jawed and sloppy as she breathes her comedown into Irisa’s ear. Irisa holds her there for a moment, keeps their bodies still and pressed together, chests heaving in ragged, breathless tandem.

It’s only a moment, though, and then she’s moving. Berlin is still limp and languid, but Irisa is anything but; she’s arching her back, twisting her body at impossible angles, too urgent to care whether or not it’s comfortable for either of them. It takes Berlin’s hazy chupped-to-death brain a second or two to figure out that there’s a point to all this wriggling, that Irisa isn’t just trying to antagonise her this time, that she’s trying to get out of her own damn pants.

Berlin bites down on a smirk. “Well,” she says. “That’s presumptuous.”

Irisa doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. They both know Berlin won’t refuse this. Why would she? She’s worked her ass off to get the little bitch worked up like this, worked herself into a frenzy to get Irisa the same way, and neither of them are stupid enough to think she’ll pull back now. Tempting as it is — turn her around, slap her on the ass and send her running home to Daddy Nolan with her panties in a mess — this was never about that; it’s become too much now, and too much about both of them. Berlin’s definitely not above leaving a lover wanting if she’s not in the mood, but Irisa’s writhing under her like an animal in heat, and why the hell would she turn that away when that’s everything she wanted?

Irisa’s writhing against her, aching and urgent and hungry, too desperate to even pretend that she’s still in control. Berlin has built her career on staging spontaneity, on finding the right lighting and the right angle, the right line in the right moment to make something seem like it’s completely natural; she knows what a performance looks like, knows what it feels like to be in the middle of one, and this is as far from that as anything she’s ever seen. This is reckless abandon, wanton desperation; this is Irisa, aching and urgent and hungry, and Berlin has to bite down on her lip because she’s the one who did it. Her performance, her staged spontaneity and easy exhibitionism, her being so damn good at what she does. _Her_ , dammit.

There’s more than one way to punish a murderer, and there’s more than one kind of pain a person can beg for. This might be a hundred thousand miles from the last time they stood here like this, but at least Berlin gets to flatter herself it’s on her ground now. At least this time, when Irisa throws her head back and shows off that bruise on her neck, Berlin can smile and show her teeth and know that she’s the one who made it happen. Not some machine, some stupid Ark-brain or Irisa’s guilty conscience. This is _hers_ , and as long as Irisa’s panting and pleading beneath her, she’s hers too.

Irisa’s lips are wet. She doesn’t speak, but Berlin can feel the words painted over her skin, as clear as if she’d yelled them to the chupping heavens. _‘Yes’_ and _‘please’_ , and her name over and over and over.

She groans, nods, and presses her free hand against the wall. The other’s still below, so she gives herself a few more strokes, lets her fingers dip lower, deeper, _wetter_ ; it’s enough to light her up again, enough that she’d probably come all over again if she wasn’t so completely spent, and when she finally wriggles back and pulls out the shudder that wracks her body is almost enough to break her. It ignites the heat in Irisa too, the want and the need that blows her pupils even wider, the passion that turns to shudders in her limbs, and the tremors in her fingers are almost brutal when she grabs Berlin’s wrist and pulls her into the space between.

Berlin doesn’t need any prompting, and she sure as shtak doesn’t need Irisa thinking she’s the one controlling this. She lets her keep hold of her wrist, but she’s the one who moves, sliding her hips back real slow, separating their bodies just enough to shove her hand down. A moment, a sucked-in breath held for a moment too long, and then she’s right _there_ , gasping and rocking again as the wetness on her fingers finds the wetness between Irisa’s thighs.

Irisa lifts her head. Her eyes are heavy, half-lidded, but she meets Berlin’s gaze with unwavering steadiness. She’s got one hand at Berlin’s back, balling the fabric of her shirt in her fist, tugging and wrenching and clinging, and the other’s vice-tight around her wrist, digging in bruise-deep and holding on for dear life. There’s violence in both of them down there, the iron in Berlin’s fingers shaping wordless threats against wet skin, and the desperate vice-tight steel of Irisa’s burning promises like rope against Berlin’s wrist.

Berlin could drown in this, the threat and the promise, the slick slide of her own fingers and the desperate heat of Irisa’s. It’s a different kind of hate, a different kind of hurt, a new violence that will leave a new mark. A new _them_ too, maybe, and one that maybe fits a little better with what they both need. No fists or weapons, no punches or kicks or reloaded magazines, just the two of them spread open and laid bare, aching and breaking and almost equal.

Choking on desperation, Irisa finds her ear again. “Make it hurt.”

It’s a challenge, dangerously close to a demand, but Berlin doesn’t care. Maybe she should, clinging like always to her control, to the balance of power, to her place on top. It should turn her hate to poison, to blood and bruises, but it doesn’t. Not this time.

She’d never admit it aloud, never let Irisa see it, but there’s a part of her that softens, that hears the demand and takes the challenge, that smiles and yields and _submits_. It’s the same part that Irisa keeps talking about, that she keeps poking and prodding and opening up like a half-healed wound, the part that really does understand all the things Irisa keeps talking about, the things that are ‘complicated’ and messy and awful, the things that Nolan and Amanda pretend they don’t see.

 _Make it hurt,_ Irisa says, a ragged whisper in the ear of the woman who hates her, not because she thinks she needs to ask for it — they both know that Berlin was going to do that whether she asked for it or not — but because she knows that she can. Because this is what they are now, apparently, two people who give and take, who challenge each other and make demands and push and pull and _push_. Because somewhere along the line this horrible hate-fuelled thing become a symbiosis, a not-quite-relationship of give and take, a messed-up and messy _something_ that feeds them both even as it keeps them starving.

These are the hurts that the others can’t see, the hurts that they’re not allowed to know about. These are theirs, Irisa’s and Berlin’s, secret and stolen and safe. Hidden away from the people who don’t understand, who could never understand what it feels like to need this kind of pain, this kind of violence. Hidden away from Amanda and her cock-eyed optimism and her empty pleas for everyone to get along, hidden away from Nolan and his hollow threats and his gun-waving machismo. This is just between them, Irisa and Berlin and all the ways that violence and hate have defined them, all the twisted things that only they understand.

If Berlin is sore from the waist down tomorrow, no-one will look to Irisa; if Irisa’s walking with a limp, no-one will think to ask Berlin if she knows why. This is all under the table, under the radar, right under the noses of all those deluded idiots who see a good person in Berlin, an innocent in Irisa, who look at them both and imagine they know what they are. It’s _theirs_ , and no-one else will ever take it away.

Nolan doesn’t understand that his daughter needs this, that she needs to be hated and hunted and hurt. Amanda doesn’t understand that her lawkeeper needs something she can break, someone she can tear apart and put back together and not stop to wonder why it doesn’t help. Irisa wants someone who won’t forgive her, someone who will hurt her in all the ways she wishes she could hurt herself; her father will never understand why his excuses and explanations make everything worse, in the same way that Amanda won’t ever understand why saying _“you’re a good person”_ makes Berlin want to run away and never look back.

Berlin is not a good person and Irisa is not innocent, and isn’t it wonderful that they’re the only two people in the whole damn world who truly understand that? Isn’t it wonderful that the one person who can give Irisa what she needs is the one who wants to break her? Isn’t it wonderful that the one person who makes Berlin see stars is the one who makes her see red? Isn’t it all so chupping wonderful?

 _Make it hurt_. Words like weapons, the only ones Irisa trusts herself to wield. She hammers them into blades, drives them between Berlin’s ribs and twists, presses them like bruises to her neck, her lips, licks them into the roof of her mouth and the points of her teeth. Words like a fist to the face, a kick to the head, like a pistol reloaded again and again and again. Words like weapons, like blows, like blood, hot and hateful and bringing them both to life.

Berlin doesn’t need to make it hurt. It already does. Aching, pulsing, tearing through them both, the hurt’s already there and all the hate in the world couldn’t make it worse.

It’s not good. It’s not simple or easy or clean. It’s none of the things Amanda says they should be, none of the things Nolan says they need to be. But it’s the only thing either of them can understand, and it’s the only common ground they’ll ever find. It’s them and it’s this and it’s now, and that’s… well, it’s the only thing they have. Leave the rest with Amanda and Nolan, let them fumble around in the dark with their sweet softness and their caveman grunts and whatever else works for them. Let them do what they want, but keep it the hell away from her, away from Irisa, away from the only _them_ either one of them cares about right now.

 _Do it_ , Irisa said, the last time they were here. _Do it_ , and Berlin did because she would have given anything in the whole damn world to make the murdering Irathient bitch hurt.

She does it now, too. Because she’s drunk and Irisa is angry and guilty and desperate, because they’re both hungry and hot and so damn helpless. Because pain is the only thing either one of them can process and the one thing they both have in common. Because it works, or maybe because it doesn’t. Because Berlin has to believe that all this violence is worth something in the end, because Irisa has to believe that she will get what she deserves. Because they both have to believe that they’re worth something more than the things that make them hurt and hate and turn away from the people who love them. Because this is something she can do, a breed of pain she can claim and use and take and turn into something that’s hers, something that’s _theirs_. Because…

…because Irisa is telling her to.

“Make it hurt,” she says, and Berlin doesn’t care that it’s a challenge, that it’s a demand, that it’s all those things she swore she’d never allow.

She closes her eyes, and obeys.

***


End file.
